"A vehicle can tell us a lot about what's going on in the roadway," said Blaine Leonard, a transportation technology engineer at the Utah Department of Transportation. "Maybe it braked really hard, or the windshield wipers are on, or the wheels are slipping. The car anonymously broadcasts to us that blip of data 10 times a second, giving us a constant stream of information."
Congestion on these so-called smart streets is already noticeably smoother, but it's just a small preview of the high-tech upgrades that could be coming soon to roads across Utah and ultimately across the U.S.
The goal is to ensure every vehicle in Utah, as well as neighboring Colorado and Wyoming, can eventually communicate with one another and the roadside infrastructure about congestion, accidents, road hazards and weather conditions.
Buoyed by a $20 million federal grant and an ambitious calling to "Connect the West," the city has been refining a system in which radio transmitters inside commuter buses talk directly to the traffic signals in Salt Lake City.
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