Your Chance To Offer Input on Getting Real-Time Travel Data

WHAT INFO DO DRIVERS NEED ASAP? In this real-time, information-overload, congested-roadway age, it’s an important question. What specific information will help you make better informed travel decisions and avoid traffic congestion?

Not what it would be nice to know, like the time and temperature, or what would be uplifting on a stressful drive, like a homily or thought of the day. (That kind of information, along with “Happy Birthday, Mom,” is not permitted on any type of roadway signage anyway.) But what nuggets of information will cut through the sensory overload of driving up on a traffic jam and help you make the necessary adjustment to get from your Point A to your Point B not only safely but with the least amount of inconvenience?

And how do you want to get them?

Local traffic engineers, planners and first responders want your answers. Next month, they will converge at Sandia Resort and Casino for the New Mexico Intelligent Transportation Society annual meeting, and a big part of the discussion will focus on tweaking what flashes across those huge electronic message boards, what hits smart phones as email/text alerts, what posts online or is put on the “511” Traveler Information line.

As most Metro-area drivers know from their daily commutes, electronic message boards currently exist on the interstates and a few select arterials including Paseo del Norte and Coors. Expansion of that system is planned, and your input can help determine how that occurs to best meet traveling needs and alert drivers to conditions “downstream.”

The meeting is appropriately titled “Going Mobile: Better Access, More Options.”

And this is Journal readers’ chance to weigh in — for the 337,800 drivers who squeeze through the Big I each weekday, the 154,200 who idle behind backups at the Paseo/Interstate 25 interchange, and the 151,650 stacked up at Coors and Interstate 40 who have hit their steering wheels in frustration because nobody is listening to how bad it is out there.

You now have the experts’ full and undivided attention.

What follows are a series of options on the kind of information that you can get about your commute — it’s also posted on ABQjournal.com. Rank each if the 13 categories in order of your priorities — and include your own ideas, too — and then use a letter from the list of delivery options to show how you want to get it. Mail me your druthers, or click through and take the survey online. The decidedly unscientific results will be part of the discussion Nov. 15 on what information should be made available to drivers and how the Metro area’s ITS system should grow.

So: What do you want to know about your travel times and/or route options?

How long it takes to get from one point on the interstate to a major arterial/ destination (For example, if travelers are northbound on Interstate 25 from Los Lunas or Belen coming into KAFB or Downtown Albuquerque, what are the travel conditions on I-25, and if necessary the alternative routes of Isleta or Broadway?)

How long it takes to get across the river from the West Side to the interstate or a major arterial/destination? (For example, for drivers on southbound N.M. 528 near Intel, what are the best travel options? Is there a crash or congestion on Alameda or Paseo?) How long it takes to take to traverse the city along major arterials such as Tramway, Paseo or Rio Bravo?

What else do you want to know about your commute?

Travel time? Travel delay? (Delay is the time difference between normal driving conditions and the congested conditions.) A distinction between normal congestion versus non-recurring/incidentrelated congestion? The nature of the delay? Accident, construction, weather conditions, or other adversity affecting travel? If there is a backup at a key intersection or congested conditions at a major destination? If there is an area drivers should avoid altogether? If there is a closure, its expected time frame? If a closure/backup has been cleared? Possible detours or alternate routes to avoid a backup or closure? If mass transit is running on time and those schedules?

How do you want to get that information? (With the understanding you would check your phone or laptop before starting the ignition, never, ever while operating a moving vehicle.)

A. Read it on the electronic message boards.

B. Receive it via email.

C. Receive it via text.

D. View it on the NMRoads travel app.

E. Look it up on the Web.

F. Call the 511 road information line.

Finally, is there any information you now receive that isn’t adding value? If so, what is it? And if there are no issues to report, would a blank sign be better?

I’ll share the results with readers and the traffic and planning experts and firstresponders next month.

Assistant editorial page editor D’Val Westphal tackles commuter issues for the Metro area on Mondays and West Siders and Rio Ranchoans on Thursdays. Reach her at 823-3858; road@abqjournal.com  ; P.O. Drawer J, Albuquerque, NM 87103; or go to ABQjournal.com/traffic   to read previous columns and join in the conversation.