Web-controlled traffic signs from State College company help governments save transportation cash

At a time when states and cities are looking for any possible way to save money, a company in State College is giving many governments a way to use their transportation budgets more efficiently.

All Traffic Solutions makes electronic road signs like the ones you’ve seen alerting you to crashes or warning you that you’re going a smidge over the speed limit. The way the company’s signs used to work, customers would receive the signs and software to run them separately.

But for the last year All Traffic Solutions has sold signs that are able to automatically connect to the Internet – no software installation needed. That makes life easier for customers, mostly government agencies like police and transportation departments. Besides the ability to broadcast messages, the signs have cameras, accelerometers and other tools that sense the speed of a vehicle and how much traffic is on a road.

“Our customers can be in their office downloading information from across the state, or across the country for that matter,” VP and co-founder Scott Johnson says.

He adds that the signs can save about 80 percent of the money they’d normally spend on traffic control and monitoring by showing where problems arise and when drivers are most likely to disregard traffic regulations. “If they have only 10 hours a week to dedicate to traffic enforcement, we can tell them when those 10 hours should be,” Johnson says.

Source: Scott Johnson, All Traffic Solutions
Writer: Rebecca VanderMeulen