An effective form of freeway surveillance is crucial to efficient transportation systems. Surveillance offers quick detection and facilitates intervention to prevent further escalation or occurrence of traffic incidents. An active method of incident detection is having motorists calling in reports on cellular phones. The number of people using cellular phones increases daily. Industry analysts predict over 100 million users by the end of the year 2000, more than 36 percent of the population.
Cellular phones allow individual motorists to detect freeway incidents.
However, TxDOT personnel need more information about the reliability, cost and effectiveness of cellular phones. Some survey responses indicate that cellular reports usually come in before loop systems can generate an alarm. Callers can provide information about the severity of each incident. All these aspects show the effectiveness of motorists' phone reports over more passive detection systems. This plan specifies continuing the use of cellular phone reports as the main method of detecting incidents.