GEORGIA NAVIGATOR

(Redirected from Georgia NaviGAtor)
'Georgia Navigator' (sometimes also as 'Georgia NaviGAtor') is the intelligent transportation system in the U.S. state of Georgia. It is run by the Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT), and began operation in 1996, just before the 1996 Summer Olympics were held in Atlanta.
Most of the system is installed in metro Atlanta, where at least half of the state's population lives. It includes traffic cameras, changeable-message signs, and traffic speed sensors embedded in the pavement (though floating car data is used on Georgia 400's tollway section instead). Other equipment was installed on Interstate 475 near Macon. Everything is connected by buried optical fiber, which in turn connects to GDOT's command center at its headquarters in Atlanta.
Statewide, the system also has weather stations with pavement sensors scattered around Georgia. Traffic sensors are also installed on evacuation routes from coastal areas, but these are only active during a hurricane approaching the Georgia coast or eastern Florida panhandle.
Information from the system is also distributed by other companies including Traffic Pulse, which in turn is used by The Weather Channel at the end of each local forecast on cable TV.

Contents

Deployment progress

External links

Deployment progress

The system covers most of the Perimeter (I-285) around Atlanta, and all of the freeways within and (except for I-20) just beyond it. As of August 2007, work on I-285 is still under construction on the west side from Langford Parkway (Georgia 166) north to I-75, and on the south side from I-675 east to I-20. Repair work was also continuing on I-75 around Marietta, after a failed electrical transformer sent a power surge into that segment of the system on August 10th, knocking it offline and apparently damaging some of the cameras or their power supplies.
Several ramp meters will begin operation in 2008 in metro Atlanta, as far out as I-575. Unlike early systems which used induction loops, cameras will use video motion detection to sense openings in traffic and allow more vehicles to proceed onto the freeway.
I-75 is now covered with average-speed detection all the way past Macon to between Cordele and Tifton, nearly to southern Georgia. Coverage also extends out I-16 from Macon and past Dublin to the exit north of Vidalia. To the north, it extends only to just past Kennesaw, but is being extended up both I-75 and I-575, and will include ramp meters.
I-85 coverage runs from about halfway to Columbus in the southwest to Georgia 316 in the northeast, and will be extended once the complete reconstruction and massive expansion of that highway interchange and part of 316 is complete.
On I-20, coverage only runs within the Perimeter. Georgia 400 is covered to Alpharetta, and I-475 and I-675 are fully covered, though 675 has no cameras. I-285 has no cameras on the south or west sides, nor does I-85 southwest of the Atlanta airport, or on Georgia 400 north of Sandy Springs. A stub section of Peachtree Industrial Boulevard (Georgia 141) is a freeway off of I-285, and has both cameras and speed sensors along that short stretch. [1]
Other cameras and signs are operated on major local roads by county governments, though coverage is still very spotty. These also feed into the Georgia Navigator system. Timing systems for traffic lights do not necessarily feed into the system, but are sometimes linked between individual neighboring counties and cities.

External links

★ Georgia Navigator website