According to the 2018 TomTomTraffic Index, Ottawa ranked 4thmost congested city in Canada and14th in North America. Congestedroadways are a major road-bump forthe economy and culture of urbanareas. Knowing this, the City ofOttawa was looking for a way toactively monitor and manage theimpact of local traffic events such asroad closures and present theirfindings using factual data. Makingimprovements in collected trafficdata’s reliability is crucial toeffectively manage roadways andrelay accurate information totravelers and traffic managers.

City of Ottawa Traffic Operations

The City of Ottawa, with the help ofiNode™, is able to actively monitortraffic flow, pinpoint issues incongested areas, identify andmeasure the impacts ofconstruction. Using the platform,City officials have established over20 links monitoring travel times onhighways and roads within the City.The exported charts and CSV filesof the data are used to validateproject findings, support Citydecisions, investigate traffic issues,measure impacts of traffic patternchanges, and back-up necessaryproposals, using this factual trafficdata in place of anecdotal. Other

Project Summary

SMATS complete software traffic monitoring system is themost relied upon system for Ottawa's TransportationServices Department Traffic Operation Needs.

Challenge

SolutionSMATS Traffic Solutions’ dataanalytics platform, iNode™, hasintegrated crowdsourced traffic data.This allows the City of Ottawa toestablish “virtual sensors” andmonitor traffic conditions in realtime, eliminating the need of dealingwith hardware in terms of installing, relocating or retrieving.

Results

The use of iNode™ enables the Cityto monitor live travel time,compare alternative travel routesand perform before-and-afterstudies. Keeping in mind socialimpact, traffic data is sourced from“floating-cars”, made anonymousto respect public privacy.

SMATS Traffic Solutions Inc., 7 Bayview Rd., Ottawa, ON, Canada, K1Y 2C5Tel: (888) 441-5666, Fax: (613) 701-4142, email: info@smats.ca, website: www.smatstraffic.com

Customer City of Ottawa

Transportation Services

Department

Partner SMATS Traffic Solutions,

Ottawa

Industry 

Traffic Management

Challenge 

-Required a trustworthy,

simple traffic system.

-Monitor live and collect

travel time of city streets.

Solution

- SMATS iNode™ data

analytics web platform

- Crowdsourced data.

Results - Works flawlessly to collect

live travel time information

- Valid tool to collect factual

data

- Used throughout Traffic

Services for a variety of use

cases.

https://www.ottawatourism.ca/

Extreme or unpredicted traffic events, especially incombination, lead to increased congestion. Theclear unpredictability of traffic outlines the valuethat live travel time brings to the table. Whenlooking for real-time traffic data and/or a trafficmonitoring solution, City Traffic Engineers want asystem that is simple to use, quick to deploy,versatile, cost effective, and fits into existingbusiness practices. The iNode™ data analytics platform offers unlimitedaccess for municipality staff to monitor and evaluatetraffic conditions. This allows multiple sectionswithin the City to utilize a common platform fortransportation decisions. The data can be utilized for a variety of cases, such asincident monitoring, signal optimization, and databacked travel times. The all-in-one, web-based transportation monitoring system allows the City toperform traffic studies of all durations on high-frequency city roads. The adaptability and accuracyof the system is a clear advantage of SMATStechnology.

The City of Ottawa Traffic Services is responsiblefor a wide scope of operations. They aim tomaximize the safety, efficiency, capacity andpredictability of the existing road network for allusers. With the amount of construction in Ottawa, theimpact of lane closures and work zones drasticallyaffect the flow of traffic regularly. Recently, Hog’sBack Bridge in Ottawa has been closed, forcingtraffic to be rerouted in other directions.The ability to actively monitor road traffic flow withaccess to live data ensures that alternative routesare as efficient and effective as possible during theconstruction period.By using iNode™, the City can analyze and quantify

SMATS Traffic Solutions Inc., 7 Bayview Rd., Ottawa, ON, Canada, K1Y 2C5Tel: (888) 441-5666, Fax: (613) 701-4142, email: info@smats.ca, website: www.smatstraffic.com

-BRUNO LEPAGEINCIDENT MANAGEMENT COORDINATOR,

CITY OF OTTAWA.

“Diverse functionality, remote accessibility, andthe valid traffic data we obtain using SMATS’ iNode™ platform greatly helps us make many traffic-related

decisions.”

units within the City, such as Traffic Engineering,have began to implement facets of iNode™ tostreamline their operations, such as utilizingbefore-and-after studies for traffic signal retiming.“Diverse functionality, remote accessibility, and thevalid traffic data we obtain using SMATS’ iNode™platform greatly helps us make many traffic-related decisions.” according to Bruno Lepage,Incident Management Coordinator, TrafficManagement, City of Ottawa.

City Efficiency

the impact of the bridge closure on congestion. Aswell, utilizing before-and-after traffic studies tohighlight traffic improvements and factuallyreinforce the importance of construction changes.

Map of virtual sensor locations

Why SMATS?Graphed data output of travel speed and times