PSU Magazine Spring 2002

he image appearing on the graduate student's computer monitor is like the schematic of a beating heart, fed by veins and arter– ies, full of multicolored blood cells speeding along in a purposeful frenzy. A valve closes and the cell in one of the minor blood vessels back up one after the other. Then the valve opens, and the cells rush into the main artery to be carried along in the fast-moving current. But these aren't blood cells, and the schematic isn't of a heart and arteries. It is the outline of the Interstate High– way 5 interchange at Wilsonville, the cells are cars and trucks, and the valves are traffic ignals. Every move by every car is an actual recorded event-wires imbedded under the asphalt picked up data, which was later archived at Portland State and used in this computer model. The graduate student pulls down a menu at the top of the screen and asks the computer to simulate what the sit– uation would look like with 20 percent more traffic. As if fatty deposits are suddenly plastered along the walls of arterie , the cells back up in longer and longer lines, increasing pressure on the system, threatening an aneury m. This is vital information to have if you are a transportation planner, the mayor of Wilsonville, or a real estate developer. What if a proposed housing development in Wilsonville added another 1,000 cars a day to the local traffic? Would we need to widen road– ways and add lanes? If so, who pays for it? his is just one of many projects under way at PSU's Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) Labora– tory in Science Building 2. "Intelligent Transportation" is the use of surveil– lance and communications technology by government and other agencies to make traffic flow faster, smoother, and afer. You see it in action when you wait for a green light to let you onto The data collected every 20 seconds from sensors imbedded in Oregon's Highway 26 is studied by students in PSU's Intelligent Transportation Systems Laboratory. SPRING 2002 PSU MAGAZI E 15