Technology Could Help Drivers Make Right Choice

It’s a familiar dilemma for weary commuters between Orange and Riverside counties, particularly before and after the worst of rush hour: Take the toll lanes and be assured of a quick ride through the Santa Ana Canyon, or hope for the best on the main line?

Drivers who guess wrong either waste money or find themselves stuck in traffic they could have avoided.

The Orange County Transportation Authority is considering new technology that could help drivers avoid this pickle by telling them how much time they could save by taking the 91 Express Lanes, which stretch 10 miles down the middle of the Riverside Freeway through one of Southern California’s most notorious bottlenecks.

The technology, which includes infrared detectors and microwave radar, also could help the transit authority measure traffic speeds to keep people moving as quickly as possible. Officials might install the new technology as early as the summer of 2005.

That’s great news to commuter Hilarie Moore of Norco. For about two years, Moore, 47, has started her daily commute on the 91 at 6:30 a.m., driving to her job as a registered nurse at UC Irvine Medical Center. She used to ride in the general lanes, she said, and the trip could take more than 90 minutes. She often arrived at work late, costing her hours of pay.

So she started paying to drive in the toll lanes, whipping past traffic standing still in the general lanes. Moore said taking the toll lanes saves her about 30 minutes each way -- at a cost of about $75 a month.

“It helps me get home sooner. I’m not as tired. I have more time to do things around the house,” said Moore, a mother of four and an owner of five show horses.

The county transit agency bought the lanes from the California Private Transportation Co. in 2003 to make improvements on the freeway and manage traffic better.

Tolls are determined by time of day, with the highest prices charged westbound during the morning commute and eastbound in the evening. The average daily toll, one way, is about $2.40. At peak times the toll can be as high as $6.25, and the transit agency has the authority to charge even more: as much as $8 each way.

Tolls are collected electronically using small transponders that drivers attach to their windshields or place on dashboards. The transponders emit radio signals that are detected by sensors along the toll lanes. The toll is debited from an account linked to the transponder.

Right now, about 280,000 cars travel the Riverside Freeway daily. Over the next 20 years, county transit officials expect that number will almost double, to about 450,000.

“It’s just growing like crazy every day,” said Ellen Burton, general manager of the lanes. “The freeway can’t handle that load.”

Orange County transit officials hope new technology that measures average vehicle speed and travel time can help them manage capacity and ensure that traffic in the toll lanes moves swiftly.

They are examining technologies that would capture data, such as signals from toll transponders or images of license plates from random vehicles to determine how quickly they moved along the lanes.

For example, infrared sensors would capture images of a vehicle’s license plate at several points along the route. By tracking the vehicle using the license plate image, computers could determine average speed and travel time. Microwave radars could pinpoint a vehicle’s speed at a specific point, but would be less useful for calculating speed or travel time along the entire freeway, officials say.

Burton said drivers’ privacy would be preserved by encrypting license plate numbers, which would not be linked to any outside database.

County transit officials say the most promising option to measure vehicle speed and travel time is to use the same radio-frequency technology now used to collect tolls.

Additional radio sensors would be placed above lanes or on signposts along the freeway. New software would allow computers to use existing transponders’ signals to monitor vehicles as they entered, traveled along and left the toll lanes, measuring their speed and travel time.

Because people with transponders don’t always use the toll lanes, the transit agency also could measure speed and travel time on the general lanes.

The modified technology could cost up to $1 million. But, Burton said, the radio technology is reliable, is compatible with toll systems throughout the state and would work with the transit authority’s existing infrastructure.

After the data were collected, up-to-the-minute travel speeds and times could be displayed on signs along the 91, or could be made available to drivers by phone or the Internet.

In the future, new technology also might change how the agency determines tolls. There’s a possibility it could use “dynamic pricing” -- setting tolls minute by minute, determined by actual traffic congestion.

The San Diego Assn. of Governments operates such a pricing system on its FasTrak toll lanes, which run for eight miles on Interstate 15 through San Diego, roughly north of the Miramar Marine Corps Air Station.

Embedded in the lanes are wire loop detectors that measure traffic volume. Tolls are adjusted accordingly, as often as every six minutes. Electronic signs along the route display the toll, alerting drivers to the price of the lanes and giving them a clue about traffic congestion.

“It makes more efficient use of the existing freeway system, which is pretty much at capacity,” said Derek Toups, FasTrak project manager for the San Diego Assn. of Governments.

Variable toll pricing has additional benefits that make the commute better for the region, Toups said. Higher prices discourage people from using the toll lanes. Having fewer vehicles in the toll lanes allows them to run smoothly and quickly, making them worth the money.

But, Toups said, higher tolls are really designed to get people to change their commute times -- to leave earlier or later to avoid peak traffic, which, in turn, would relieve congestion by spreading it out through the day.

The lanes generate $2 million in revenue annually. Almost half of that, about $900,000, is used to subsidize express buses that also run in the toll lanes. Garry Bonelli, spokesman for the San Diego group, said the toll lanes, along with dynamic pricing, have helped increase carpooling by 129% since their implementation in 1997.

“The beauty of this thing is that you go 65 miles per hour without stopping at all,” Bonelli said.

But Orange County is a long way from that, said Gregory Winterbottom, chairman of the board of the county transit agency. “We don’t raise tolls to make money; we raise tolls to manage traffic,” he said. “Right now, our goal is trying to move people the best we can.”