MassDOT to study state's heavy traffic areas

BOSTON — The Massachusetts Department of Transportation revealed on Wednesday plans for a study of the state's most congested traffic areas, according to a tweet from MassDOT's Communications Director Jacquelyn Goddard. The study will focus both on areas where traffic is at its worst, as well as the causes of the congestion.

MassDOT, with the support of consultants, is set to conduct the study, which will focus on multiple traffic statistics and possible options to reduce the heavy congestion. Travel time, miles traveled, transit ridership and freight data will be some of the many data points looked at in the study, according to Goddard's post that included two slides from the department's presentation.

In order to help the state alleviate some of the heavy traffic, the study will also look at three types of congestion: traffic caused by crashes, traffic caused by work-zone construction and traffic caused by exceeded roadways.

Also examined in the study will be traffic volume data from both traditional and nontraditional data sources, such as Waze, along with crash and incident data, economic growth and household travel survey information. The study is scheduled to be completed in the middle of next Spring, with the findings set to be returned to MassDOT's board in the Spring/Summer of 2019.

A team comprised of officials from MassDOT Highway, the Office of Intermodal Planning, and the Office of Performance Management
and Innovation will help coordinate the study for MassDOT.

The announcement came from Goddard's twitter at 2:29 p.m. on Monday afternoon, during MassDOT's mid-morning news conference relating to Thanksgiving travel.

Cox Media Group