ADOT installs new sensors to help track freeway traffic flow

PHOENIX – Working overnight along stretches of Phoenix-area freeways, Arizona Department of Transportation crews are moving closer to completing installation of new in-pavement sensors that monitor traffic flow.

You can expect overnight closures along Interstate 17 over the next several weeks as crews work to complete the project by this summer.

In addition to helping ADOT track freeway conditions, these sensors provide the data used to estimate the travel times that drivers see on message boards above freeways. The data also helps ADOT and the Maricopa Association of Governments, the regional transportation-planning agency, make decisions about future freeway improvements.

Using electronic wires embedded in the pavement, the sensors have been used along many Valley freeways for years. The current project is installing additional in-pavement sensors as a more reliable replacement for acoustic devices that are mounted on poles.

This project is one way ADOT is working toward the agency’s continuous improvement goal of reducing congestion on freeways in metro Phoenix.

After installing in-pavement sensors on Interstate 10, US 60 (Superstition Freeway) and State Route 51 (Piestewa Freeway) in recent months, ADOT will address Interstate 17 over the next several weeks, starting with the southbound lanes between Peoria Avenue in north Phoenix and 19th Avenue south of the downtown area.

This week, overnight closures of southbound I-17 stretches are scheduled through Thursday night, May 18, between Peoria Avenue and Bethany Home Road for sensor-installation work. Southbound I-17 also is scheduled to be closed this weekend between Indian School Road and Van Buren Street for rubberized asphalt paving.

When the sensor-installation project is completed, more than 85 locations on Phoenix-area freeways will have new traffic-flow sensors.