The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
GETTING HIGH-TECH
Computer network coming for trucks, roadside
Snow plows on the Ohio Turnpike will get some high-tech help this winter.
Turnpike maintenance staff are preparing their trucks and implements for the coming winter season.
On Oct. 18, the Amherst Maintenance Building Department held its annual pre-snowfall inspection of the equipment used to clear 235.8 lane miles of travel on its stretch of the toll highway.
“It’s a two- to three-hour process to go over everything with a fine-toothed comb to make sure everything is safe and working well for the winter season,” said Brian Newbacher, public information officer for the Ohio Turnpike.
“Our intent is to collect useful data that can be transmitted and shared with other vehicles.” — Chris Matta, deputy chief engineer for the Ohio Turnpike
The Amherst station, 7800 Oberlin Road in Amherst Township, is part of a turnpike project that made national news this week.
The Ohio Turnpike and Infrastructure Commission has approved a $1.46 million project to create a new “vehicle-to vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure network system” along the 52mile section from Amherst to Streetsboro.
It will be a new computer network of 15 roadside units and 38 vehicle units, with at least 18 of those installed in heavy trucks.
The turnpike commission will work with Logicalis Inc. to create the system. The units are not
ready yet, but will be installed for use this winter season for a two-year demonstration period.
The on-board computers will use digital shortrange radio communications to beam information 10 times a second to the roadside computers. Those units then will process the information and can send messages and warnings to other snowplow drivers.
“It’s exciting, it is cutting edge,” said Chris Matta, deputy chief engineer for the Ohio Turnpike.
Matta discussed the system with Newbacher and Travis Bonnett, turnpike traffic engineer.
The roadside computers will get data from onboard monitors that will be installed in the trucks and interface with the trucks’ onboard computers.
The computer network
is not an autopilot system to create “autonomous” or self-driving snowplows.
However, it could be used to send messages to cars with technology to send and receive the information.
“Our intent is to collect useful data that can be transmitted and shared with other vehicles,” Matta said.
As an example, drivers could receive messages about traffic ahead slowing down or stopping.
It could be possible to create a warning that the truck is wapproaching a curve going faster than the recommended speed limit for the curve, Bonnett said.
The plow drivers will have “human-machine interfaces,” which will be tablet-style devices in the truck cabs to display warnings sent from the roadside
units.
Drivers will not have to input information into the units.
Turnpike staff emphasized the tablets are not meant to be a distraction from plow drivers who already have enough to do.
“We absolutely do not want any other distractions with the drivers,” Matta said.
Nationwide, there are only a few examples of similar road data computer systems.
“This is new,” Matta said. “This is new for everybody.”
The ultimate goal is to enhance safety, so turnpike staff will have a learning curve to find how the network can be used to do so, Newbacher said.
If the truck and roadside computer network shuts down, the trucks will continue operating, he added.