Internet a valuable tool
for navigating Iowa roads

April 20, 2004

By Adam Morris
Iowa's Internet

DES MOINES, Iowa--Traffic is snarled for miles ahead. Even up around the bend, it’s bumper to bumper until the halted caravan of cars stretches out of sight between construction barriers and bright orange detour signs.

It’s a situation in which most Iowans have found themselves. For some of those Iowans, it’s a daily occurrence on Interstate Highway 235, where construction crews are tearing down parts of the Des Moines metro area’s downtrodden expressway to clear the way for new lanes and bridges.

Iowa transportation officials say the best tool to combat the detours and delays of construction lies in a place that’s seemingly unrelated to the roads: the Internet.

One such site is www.i235.com. The site is part of a network of transportation-related Web sites maintained by the Iowa Department of Transportation.

As construction worsens traffic congestion on I-235, drivers are turning to the Web more often for answers and alternative routes, said Dena Gray-Fisher, spokeswoman for the transportation department.

“In the beginning, people were pretty comfortable getting around the construction. Checking the site wasn’t a daily thing for most people,” Gray-Fisher said. “Now, we have had a 140 percent increase in usage of the site during March and April this year because of the daily effect this construction has on people.”

The transportation department’s Web presence began in 1996 with a basic home page. The site contained the department’s contact information, directions to transportation department offices and a small amount of state transportation literature, Gray-Fisher said.

Since then, the transportation department has added and continues to add a wealth of information, Gray-Fisher said.

The department’s recently launched www.511ia.org, a site that contains current road conditions and construction information displayed in an interactive format of state and city maps, and symbols that correspond to different types of construction and conditions.

Travel information and road conditions are updated daily as needed, making the site a valuable resource for drivers, Gray-Fisher said.

Transportation officials at construction sites across the state can directly input to the Web information from the field, Gray-Fisher said.

“It’s totally de-centralized,” she said. “The people who know the most about the projects are the ones who enter the information.”

The department’s Web network features a simple navigation system and design, making important information easily accessible to drivers, transportation department officials said.

“We don’t go for the bells and whistles, the Flash animations; we go for function,” Gray-Fisher said. “The integrity of our site is based on whether people can find information quickly and easily.”

Gray Fisher added, “People are very busy today, they want to be able to pull up the information they need whenever it’s convenient for them.”

The DOT’s online network also streamlines business deals between transportation officials and contractors. Bids for most projects are let and accepted almost strictly online, Gray-Fisher said. The process saves money that would be spent on paper copies of documents, and saves time for drivers by getting construction started more quickly.

A batch of interactive multimedia content is slated to be added as more Web sites and more content are developed, Gray-Fisher said.

Certain portions of the network will soon include “traffic cams” that transmit live images of traffic at certain locations throughout the expressway.

Transportation officials will soon work with county treasurers to allow Iowa drivers to renew their drivers licenses online, Gray-Fisher said.

A statewide traffic-flow map is also in the works, Gray-Fisher said. Construction crews are installing sensors along the freeway that detect the speed of vehicles. The data each sensor picks up is transmitted to a central database that will generate a real time map of how fast traffic is moving at any given area along the expressway.

“It’s important so that we, as a government agency, remain a credible source of information,” Gray-Fisher said.