Oregon E Traffic, Case study

I go through the rough outline of the Portland Oregon E Traffic system, in random order.

First:
Somebody is ripping off the Portland Oregon traffic district:

According to Pamela O’Brien, senior transportation engineer with transportation engineering firm DKS Associates, installing coordinated actuated traffic signals can cost between $50,000 to $100,000 per intersection. She is currently working on a coordinated actuated traffic signal project along Southeast Powell Boulevard.

These prices are ridiculous. But they are mining gasoline nonetheless:

“By improving signal timing at just 17 arterials in Portland using ITS, the city was able to retire 157,000 metric tons of CO2. We’re desperately in need of a long term bill that funds these projects as we look at reducing greenhouse gas emissions.”

Gasoline carbon content per gallon: 2.4 kg, 1 short ton = 1,000 kg or .0024 ton/gal gas.

Over six years, then, they have gained 65 million gallons gas, or $190 million of recovered gasoline. They have also used freight and bus priority congestion management.

“Traffic is a growing problem in almost every city in the world. The average American motorist spends 36 hours in traffic delays every year. The cost of traffic congestion just in the United States is $78 billion, representing the 4.5 billion hours of travel time and 6.8 billion gallons of fuel wasted sitting in traffic. Billions more dollars have been spent on electronics and systems to alleviate this logjam.” Brian Marshall, of the Canada Transportation Development Centre.

How much did Oregon spend to outfit 15% of their intersections? At 100k per intersection, and say 100 intersections, we have: $10-20 million likely, though the money spend is buried in a report I have not found. $190 million recovered over six years for $20 million invested. Roughly 30% ROI, not bad.

I will track down the suppliers of equipment for the investment index.