VDOT opens first rural Smart Traffic Center.

The Virginia DOT (VDOT) recently opened a Smart Traffic Center in Staunton, VA, to improve traffic flow management in the Shenandoah Valley. In addition to housing the Staunton District's traffic engineering section, the center is home to the Staunton District Operations Center, a 24-hour facility

that manages all intelligent transportation devices used for monitoring traffic and road conditions and managing incidents along the I-81 corridor in the Staunton District. The facility also serves as the base of the Augusta County office of the Virginia State Police, so both agencies contributed funding for construction.

The one-room operations center includes two stations that face a large projection screen showing multiple camera images from interstate corridors across the region. Operators not only can rotate the cameras to capture different views of I-81, but they also can adjust State-operated traffic signals to handle overflow traffic on arterial roads during an incident. The operators will manage the variable message signs along the interstate and adjacent roads, and input incident data into the area's 511 travel services system.

Images from four pilot cameras are available through the VDOT Web site at www.virginiadot.org. The cameras are located on I-64 on Afton Mountain, I-81 at Exit 298 near Strasburg, Exit 283 near Woodstock, and Exit 264 near New Market.

For more information, visit www.virginiadot.org.

VDOT