Thursday, October 20, 2011
Sorry for the light posting this week
Sorry for the light posting this week. I was in Louisiana for a few days doing some traffic engineering like the guy in the picture, and computer access was sketchy. A friend of mine has a company that collects traffic data and I moonlight doing that to make extra money. You know those black tubes attached to a box that is chained to a telephone pole you drive over once in a while? ....we put those out.
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6 comments:
Ed,
Are you coloring your hair?
I'm curious what happens to the data?
Coloring my hair? No, why do you ask? That's not me in the picture. I look way better in my safety vest.
As you probably have suspected all along, we turn the data into the authorities so they can monitor the comings and goings of all citizens in the area. If the tube machines catch you going too fast, the cops can target you at a later date for selective harassment as a scofflaw.
I was told by a traffic engineer here that Atlanta is starting to use photocell traffic counters. Y'all use those at all?
No we're still using the pneumatic tubes that trigger a microswitch in the computer in the box. The software is really amazing. From one tube it can distinguish between like 20 different vehicles based on inter-axel distance and it doesn't mistake a truck with three axels as two vehicles...not sure how.
So are the photocell counters powered by photocells rather than batteries or do you mean it's a laser beam across the road down at tire level rather than physical tubes?
Beam across the road.
I'll have to ask my friend if we'll be switching to the new ones. The pneumatic computers are about $3,000 each so I'll bet only the state DOT's can afford laser counters....probably funded by stimulus money.
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