ANAHEIM : Monitors Map Best Route for Motorists

Say you’re a guest at the Anaheim Hilton and Towers and you have to drive to an important business meeting in downtown Los Angeles.

You look at your map and see that you can take the Riverside Freeway to the Harbor Freeway, or the Santa Ana Freeway to the Hollywood Freeway. There’s not much difference in mileage, so you decide to take the Riverside Freeway but, drat the luck, you miss the meeting because of congestion caused by roadwork or an accident.

Oh, well. Traffic is a crapshoot, right? In this case, it didn’t have to be.

Anaheim has installed a computerized traffic monitor in the Hilton’s lobby next to the elevators that lead to the parking garage, giving up to the minute reports on congestion on Los Angeles and Orange County freeways and local streets. As part of the experimental project, which is being paid for by a federal grant, the city also installed an identical screen at an office building.

By punching a few buttons on a television screen, a motorist can find a clear route to a destination. Green lines mean a freeway is flowing. Yellow freeways are experiencing sluggish traffic. Red freeways are jammed and should be avoided.

Pam Broberg, the city’s traffic and transportation coordinator, said officials are trying to see if motorists will use the machine.

“The only way this will be effective is if consumers get the information, use it and it cuts their travel time,” Broberg said. “What we are trying to determine is whether this is the best system.”

A survey taken in January found that the Hilton’s monitor was used primarily between 8 and 9 a.m. and between 5 and 6 p.m.

“We think that is partly because it is being used by employees. Also, the hotel is where a lot of meetings are held,” Broberg said. Those meetings break up at 5, and a local commuter leaving that meeting might be more likely to use the monitor.”