DHS to Fund Chang I-495 Study

The Department of Homeland Security awarded civil and environmental engineering Professor Gang-Len Chang $500,000 to explore the potential for deploying a real-time traffic management and travel time prediction system for the entire I-495 Capital Beltway.

The scope of work for this pilot project includes the design of algorithms for real-time traffic simulation, optimizing sensor locations, incident detection, and integrated traffic control and management during emergency and special events.

The research team led by Chang will also work with Michael Pack from the Center for Advanced Transportation Technology to explore the effectiveness of displaying the real-time traffic simulation and control results with a 3-D visualization system. The success of this research will lead to a full-scale deployment of the intelligent traffic monitoring and management environment for the congested Capital Beltway.

Published December 6, 2006