Construction: Old School Thinking

Road construction is a mainstay of our infrastructure policy, but it is no longer solving the problem of congestion.

"Building roads to cure congestion is like loosening your belt to cure obesity"

Simon Mumford, 1955

Between 1993 and 2017 the US increased the national road capacity by 42%. Even though this was significantly faster than population growth, we still saw a 144% increase in vehicle delay. Congestion is increasing, and expanding our road capacity is no longer a viable option.

Operations: The Lowest Hanging Fruit

A significant proportion of vehicle delay is a direct result of operational problems. However, we are spending significantly less on the root cause of those issues.

Why are operations neglected?

Improving traffic operations has historically been difficult for multiple reasons:

• Cost Intensive: Many of the technology solutions geared towards operations have historically had large hardware components thereby requiring high upfront costs and long deployment times all whilst offering limited forward visibility on ROI.
• Data Intensive: Managing operations effectively requires data to be able to monitor changing conditions accurately. Today there is a lot of data but little information — where data is available it is either difficult to use or of questionable reliability.
• Labor Intensive: Traffic operations is highly labor-intensive, typically requiring large on-site field presence. Operating a large staff, outside contractors and other vendors is very resource demanding.

Flow Labs makes operations valuable.

Our innovative solutions for traffic operations management are:

• Automated deployment: We develop AI-driven, autonomous solutions that dramatically increase the productivity and responsiveness of your existing teams.
• Validated Data: We accurately process data from multiple sources increasing visibility and information.
• Cost-Efficient: We provide low-cost, scalable cloud software solutions with a 90x benefit-to-cost ratio. With low deployment times, you can see results within days or weeks not years or never.

We’re proving that significant improvements can be made on your roadways. Our existing deployments are seeing reductions in travel times of up to 24%. We achieve this at a lower cost to agencies and taxpayers, and on significantly shorter time horizons than investing in traditional methods.

Cloud-based, technology solutions deliver clear, measurable benefits, while giving you flexibility in the future for whatever changes will come. Technology solutions for operations are already proving that they can offer substantial benefits compared to construction while entailing lower risk and higher reward — it’s time to start letting your investment decisions catch up!

Flow Labs technologies like Predictive Traffic Control (PTC) enable you to spend less, deploy faster and see results quicker. For more information please contact us to schedule a demo.