Patent ID: 7689348

Claim:
A method for intelligent redirection of vehicular traffic in response to roadway congestion comprising the steps of: collecting and storing inputs for vehicle condition, construction condition and weather conditions for a particular roadway location in the traffic collection database; creating a decision matrix comprising a set of general roadway conditions and a set of solutions for the set of roadway conditions, wherein each combination of roadway conditions has a solution; monitoring vehicle speed of vehicles traveling on a roadway and passing a detection device positioned on the roadway; determining whether traffic conditions have dropped below an average vehicle speed by calculating average vehicle speed of vehicles traveling on the roadway and comparing the calculated average vehicle speed with a previously defined threshold speed; retrieving roadway characteristics information and information about conditions on the roadway from a central database when the calculated average vehicle speed is below the threshold speed; automatically generating an action plan to reduce congestion on the roadway based on roadway characteristics and roadway conditions, by creating an alternate traffic flow configuration by changing the flow direction of particular lanes of roadway through a decision matrix, the decision matrix having a set of one or more condition inputs that describe factors that can cause congestion of traffic flow and a set of solutions which are corrective actions to implement to reduce the caused traffic congestion; submitting the generated action plan to an operator for approval; receiving a response for the submitted action plan; and implementing the generated action plan when the received response was an approval of the generated action plan.