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The US Department of Transportation’s Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) has allocated $2.75m to install integrated corridor management (ICM) technologies in congested urban areas across ten states, which offer real-time travel information.

The tool is designed to accumulate congestion and incident data from various state and local agencies from highway, rail and transit operations, FHWA said.

The ICMs will be installed in selected regions, including Maricopa County, Arizona; Contra Costa County, California; Broward County, Florida; Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, City of El Paso, City of Austin and City of Portland in Texas, Utah and Virginia.

"State-of-the-art technologies like these make the entire transportation network better, safer, and more reliable for commuters, businesses and freight shippers."

US Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said: "State-of-the-art technologies like these make the entire transportation network better, safer, and more reliable for commuters, businesses and freight shippers."

Such tools allow travellers to find alternate routes or transportation systems, and shippers can gather information associated with the entire network.

The technology will assist engineers in congestion management such as directing traffic flow and shifting commuters onto systems.

ICM technologies are dependent on data sources, including live camera feeds, traffic speed and volume detectors, pavement sensors and weather monitors, to collect, transmit and analyse information.

One ICM system is currently at the US 75 in Dallas, Texas, and another on the I-15 in San Diego, California.

Image: The ICMs allow travellers to find alternate routes or transportation systems. Photo: courtesy of Bert van ‘t Hul.