1,000 cameras: Inside Ohio’s high-tech traffic center
Trey Hilde keeps his eyes trained on multiple monitors at his work station inside the Ohio Department of Transportation headquarters, watching the feed from dozens of traffic cameras across the state.
The goal? Keep traffic flowing smoothly and safely. And when there is a crash or tie-up, get the word out as soon as possible to avoid a secondary fender bender or pile up.
Hilde keeps tabs on the smart lanes on I-670 in Columbus and I-90 east of Cleveland. He has the power to change the speed limits as conditions merit, open or close shoulder lanes based on traffic flow and post messages to motorists on ODOT boards.
The ODOT Traffic Management Center employees watch real-time footage from 1,000 cameras that capture the boring and mundane to the horrific and insane. The cameras show trucks tipping over as they take curves too fast, cars going airborne like they’re in an action movie, motorists losing control and rolling like toy cars.
Some of the same data is available to motorists through the OHGO app, which gives drivers real-time information on traffic, construction, road conditions and accidents.
Shift manager Dominic Delcol said he’s seen a bridge catch fire, a freeway under construction collapse in Cincinnati,
an earthquake near Cleveland, tornadoes in Dayton and a naked guy high on drugs running down the highway for about a mile.
Delcol cues up a highlight reel of dramatic accidents and stupid moves. He likes to show it to visitors – and no, gory fatal accidents are not included. The reel even shows a bank robber chucking cash out the window as half a dozen police cruisers chase the car down a highway near Findlay.
The traffic monitors have their own lingo as well: “Turtle” means a car flipped on its roof, “Gators” are tire tread marks on the pavement, and “Can Opener” is when a tractor trailer’s roof top is peeled off when it doesn’t have enough clearance under a bridge.
At the center, operators can tilt, pan and zoom cameras – some of which shoot in high-definition – to see what’s happening on the roadways. They can talk directly to state troopers and ODOT crews on the ground to share info.
And often, they see gruesome accidents in real-time.
“I’ve seen some pretty bad crashes. People being flung from their cars. Families getting killed at night,” said Trey Hilde, a Navy veteran who has worked at the Traffic Monitoring Center for seven years. “The gravity of what we do here is very real.”
For Hilde, he tries to desensitize himself to the trauma he witnesses.
Stephen Mcdaniels keeps his eyes on 12 cameras, giving him a live look at highways through Dayton and Toledo.
When he sees a terrible wreck, he tries to stay focused on the immediate action he can take: alert local law enforcement or the Ohio State Highway Patrol and post traffic alerts on message boards upstream from the accident site.
Mcdaniels has seen suicides – wrong-way motorists driving directly into the path of semi-trucks and people who jump off bridges – and fatal crashes in real-time. Recently, he watched a woman driving on I-275 near Loveland lose control, causing her truck to roll and her body to be ejected.
Gallows humor is how Mcdaniels deals with the trauma. “To be honest, you kind of got to joke about it.”
Laura Bischoff is a reporter for the USA TODAY Network Ohio Bureau, which serves the Columbus Dispatch and 20 other affiliated news organizations across Ohio.