The three-state traffic information system NewEngland511, which has provided online road guidance to the public for several years, has been upgraded to be more usable on smartphones and tablets and has received a number of new features, including the ability to view all the traffic cameras on a particular road at one time.
“That will be useful in winter, when bad weather hits. You can look and see what conditions are like … all along (the road),” said Susan Klasen, Transportation Systems Management & Operations Administrator for the N.H. Department of Transportation.
Another major upgrade involves individual alerts via a system called My 511. This lets users create a route and then receive notifications via email or text messages about construction or crashes that would affect travel time. This is an expansion of what was formerly called My Trips, and requires creating a new account in the system.
Klasen said she uses it to decide what route to take on her commute to Concord. “Am I doing (route) 106 or am I doing (interstate) 93? … It will give me anything happening on that route and I can see which is best.”
Klasen noted that this can also be done by drawing a polygon around any part of the three-state map, then receiving information and updates from all state roads in that region.
“That could be used … if a city counselor wanted to know what was happening in their area on state roads,” Klasen said, as an example.
Other information, including local weather forecasts, is also available. Pull-down menus also exist related to trucking, such as location of truck stops and links to permits, airports and bicycling, including bike-related events.
NewEngland511 is a web site, not an app, accessible at www.newengland511.org. It can be seen through any browser connected to the internet and does not need a download from an app store on Android or Apple devices.
It is a joint project of Vermont, Maine and New Hampshire, with New Hampshire DOT as the project manager. Developing and launching the site cost “approximately $75,000, split equally between the 3 states,” Klasen said.
NewEngland 511 only deals with state roads, including the interstate system, not with roads maintained by cities or towns.
It presents information about conditions on state roads gathered from a number of sources, including the navigation companies TomTom and HERE Technologies. Information from Waze, submitted by drivers about conditions and travel times, can also be seen. It is part of an advanced traffic management system run out of the DOT Traffic Management Center on Route 106 in Concord, the place that programs all those big digital road signs.
Maine has included the ability to highlight its park and ride locations, visitor centers and scenic byways on separate layers of mapping as part of the upgrade, while Vermont lets you see all of its public electric-vehicle charging stations. New Hampshire “is still working through which extra layers we want to put on there,” said Klasen.
The traffic management system was established as part of a four-year contract with Southwest Research Institute, expanded this year to include ArcadisIBI’s web product known as Travel-IQ.
