The Wide Angle: 10 Parts of a Smart Highwayby Jonathan Strickland, HowStuffWorks.com
It's All About the Benjamins Building smart highways will take time and money, but they have the potential to ultimately save both. When executed correctly smart highways can decrease traffic congestion, increase highway safety and reduce the environmental impact caused by traffic jams.
1. MONEY AND TIME Smart highways aren't cheap. It can cost billions of dollars to put a smart highway infrastructure into place, and ongoing maintenance creates a continuous need for more money. Depending on the system, it can take years to install and activate all the elements to create a smart highway. By the time a system is ready to go online, it's very possible that the components it relies upon will be obsolete. A prime example: Boston's Big Dig project took more than 20 years from conception to completion. The goal was to create an alternate to Boston's Central Artery, one of the most congested stretches of highway in the United States. Boston's solution was to dig out a larger highway underneath the elevated Central Artery and incorporate smart highway technology to keep traffic running smoothly. It was a particularly complex project that had more than its share of setbacks and problems -- both structurally and legally -- and racked up billions of dollars in cost overruns. Another big challenge for smart highway technology is compatibility. Many projects are regional and these may not interact smoothly with other systems. What happens when one system expands into the territory of another? Will both systems work in parallel? Will engineers find a way to let the two systems merge into one? Imagine this process taking place across a country as large as the United States. You could have dozens of different systems with compatibility issues. Solving that problem will likely cost a lot of money. Systems like the GPS tracking method aren't as expensive but rely heavily on driver participation to work. If the system doesn't have enough participants, it can't gather the data needed to create an accurate picture of what's going on. These systems might require driver incentives to be successful. Even taking the money and time factors into account, smart highways are a good investment. When executed correctly they can decrease traffic congestion, increase highway safety and reduce the environmental impact caused by traffic jams. With hope, it won't be another 70 years before General Motors' 1939 prediction comes true. |
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