BY TANYA ALBERT
The Cincinnati Enquirer
A wall of a dozen 25-inch television sets and two 6-foot-by-8-foot screens are filled with live shots of the Tristate's morning rush hour.
The room glows as more than 65 cameras around Greater Cincinnati interstates feed morning rush-hour shots into ARTIMIS "mission control." It's the brain trust for the electric signs bridging local interstates.
Men and women watch the wall for signs of trouble. They're ready to spring into action if there's a glitch.
Interstate 71 traffic cruises along smoothly. Same on Interstate 275.
On Interstate 75, though, it's backing up near the Sharon Road exit. An accident.
They display the area on the larger screen. They figure out the cars involved in the accident are in the right shoulder. They see the police arrive. They program a sign to alert drivers: ACCIDENT; NORTH OF SHARON; RIGHT LANE CLOSED.
Commuters know to merge left.
This is their daily challenge: Communicate to us, the drivers, what this mess is shaping up to be.
ARTIMIS employees have to choose their words carefully. It's like a high-school English assignment: Find the shortest word that conveys the most information.
To put a message on one screen, they have only three lines, just 18 to 21 characters a line and an audience cruising by at 55 mph.
Some drivers are local and know the roads. Others are strangers just passing through town.
ARTIMIS (for Advanced Regional Traffic Interactive Management and Information System) has a library of set messages it puts up. But the library is evolving. There's always a way to say something a little clearer.
Operations Supervisor Linda Roll says they keep asking "What would I want to know if I were out there?" Drivers sitting under signs don't want to see the words "slow traffic." They know that. They want to know how long the delay is.
When messages are posted, the first line states the condition. Accident, closure. The second line gives the location. And the third line is the caution or delay time. When needed, controllers go to a second screen to let people know more about other routes or more accidents ahead.
Writing signs can be a fun word game.
Let's say there's a fender-bender and the drivers have pulled onto the side of the freeway. Traffic is creeping by. Should the sign say "Slow traffic" or "Congestion?"
Congestion is a long word and may be hard to catch at 55 mph. Slow is easier to read and may have more obvious meaning when it comes to traffic. For me, slow means take a deep breath and brace for some bumper-to-bumper traffic. Congestion makes me think of allergies.
Next, does the slow traffic "End"? "Clear"? "Ease"?
End or clear might suggest that drivers who make it through the bad section will have the roads to themselves. Ease is more accurate; as the crowd may spread out and speed up, but certainly not disappear.
When an interstate closes, saying "major delays on all routes" conveys more information than "avoid the area."
It means: "I'm going to be delayed, so I can pick up the phone and call home to let them know," says Scott Evans, ARTIMIS program manager.
Some choices are a tossup: Say the fender-bender is still in a traffic lane, should the sign say "left lane blocked ahead" or "merge right"?
Some abbreviations have not been popular.
When ARTIMIS put up "NB" for northbound or "SB" for southbound, it got calls: "What does that mean?" Now the signs will use the letter 'N' or 'S' or spell out the word.
And when "FWW" went up for Fort Washington Way closures and delays, out-of-town drivers had no idea what that meant. Now, "I-71 through downtown Cincinnati" has been added to the signs.
When the words are right, it makes a difference.
ARTIMIS recently studied how the messages worked during six accidents. The warnings reduced traffic snarls. ARTIMIS calculates 28 miles of back-up and $675,000 in motorist operating costs were saved.
As winter settles in, ARTIMIS' sign writers will be busy trying to guide drivers through the snow and ice, and the accidents they cause.
Those little words on the signs will help interstate drivers decide whether they'll try another route or brace for the delay ahead.
Tanya Albert's "Commuting" column appears each Monday in the Metro section. E-mail her at tmalbert@enquirer.com; call (513) 768-8389; FAX: 768-8340; mail at 312 Elm St., Cincinnati 45202.
