TRAFFIC OPERATIONS CENTER

Carl Baughman, PE
Traffic Engineer

Phone: (615) 550-6672
Fax: (615) 791-3293

• Real Time Traffic Map
• Traffic History: Williamson County
• Traffic Signal Map
• What's Wrong With The Light?
• Service Request / Comments

 

The City of Franklin’s Traffic Operations Center (TOC) brings smart traffic management to the City in an Intelligent Transportation System (ITS).

 

ITS encompasses a broad range of wireless and wireline communications-based information, control and electronics technologies. When integrated into the transportation system infrastructure these technologies help monitor and manage traffic flow, reduce congestion, provide alternate routes to travelers, enhance productivity, and save lives, time and money.

 

Intelligent transportation systems provide the tools for skilled transportation professionals to collect, analyze, and archive data about the performance of the system during the hours of peak use. Having this data enhances TOC operators' ability to respond to incidents, adverse weather or other capacity constricting events.

 

New applications and technologies are being developed every day. Current examples of ITS technologies being considered for use in Franklin include:

• Roadway Weather information services (RWIS)
• Dynamic message signs (DMS)

 

Future considerations may include:

• On-board navigation systems
• Crash notification systems
• Roadbed sensors
• Traffic video/control technologies

 

The future of the City of Franklin is addressed in the Nashville Area Metropolitan Planning Organization’s ITS Master Plan and through our own 2004 Major Thoroughfare Plan Update. Coordination between Franklin, Brentwood, Murfreesboro, Nashville Metro, TDOT’s SmartWay System and the Franklin Transit Authority are on the horizon as part of a wide-scale development and deployment of these technologies. This represents a true revolution in the way we, as a community, think about transportation.

 

A transportation system that is foremost safe, economically sound and environmentally efficient requires a new way of looking at, and solving, the transportation problems of Congestion Management, Travel Time, Delay, Fuel Consumption and Air Pollution. The simple idea of building bigger and more roads solves neither our transportation problems, nor the needs of our community for an efficient transportation system. ITS enables people and goods to move more safely and efficiently through a state-of-the-art, intermodal transportation system.