New technology warns drivers of congestion on select Columbus highways

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) - Earlier this year, Governor Mike DeWine and the Ohio Department of Transportation announced a new initiative that would use technology built into highway cameras to detect traffic congestion and then warn drivers of dangerous slow-downs ahead.

The technology is now up and running in three places on Columbus interstates: 70 eastbound at Sullivant Ave. and 270 southbound at Main St. and E Broad St.

"This is the camera technology that we use for a lot of different things. We can use it for traffic counts, we can use it to detect wrong-way drivers, but also in this circumstance, we're trying to detect a queue," said ODOT Press Secretary Matt Bruning. "That's why the new technology is called the "queue warning system."

The camera detects the queue or line of slow or stopped traffic, and then, a message automatically generates on a digital highway sign ahead of the queue to prepare drivers.

"We think this will lead to a 16% decrease in crashes overtime," Bruning added. "That might not seem like a lot, but that's about 1,400 crashes a year."

Bruning says this technology was already in the works last year ahead of the November crash on I-70 in Licking County that killed six people, but that accelerated its rollout.

"When that tour bus with the students from Tusky Valley was involved in that crash that's because there was a primary crash up ahead that had been moved off to the shoulder, but it was creating a queue of traffic," he said "Traffic had stopped and it was backing up or was very slow up at the crash site. That queue of traffic is what prompted that crash we saw out there on 70. This is something that we hope will significantly reduce the chance of that happening again."