Smart Trek shows you the way to go home

If there times when you need more traffic information than is currently available on radio traffic reports, a project called Smart Trek may be your answer. It is bringing advanced traffic information to commuters and visitors to the Puget Sound region as part of a federally funded initiative to promote “Intelligent Transportation Systems.”

Smart Trek is a $17.9 million project featuring 27 public and private partners, including the UW, King County, the cities of Seattle and Bellevue, Boeing and other Puget Sound employers. They are working under the direction of the Washington State Department of Transportation to provide transit, traffic and traveler information to the public at home, at work and enroute, through a variety of media.

TransitWatch is a new project that informs commuters at major transit centers when they can expect their bus. Currently available at the Bellevue and Northgate Transit Centers, the transit monitors provide real-time information about bus delays and departures for all of the buses heading to those centers.

TrafficTV on channel 75 brings viewers live images from area freeways, along with Washington State Department of Transportation FLOW maps. TrafficTV airs on the UW’s new second cable channel UW2 TV each day at 5 a.m.­9 a.m., 11 a.m.­1:30 p.m., 3:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. Many areas in northeast and west Seattle can currently view it on channel 69 or 75. Most other TCI customers in King County can view TrafficTV beginning this month.

BusView is a new Internet service that allows you to track buses in real-time on a map of King County. If your Internet browser supports the latest version of Netscape (version 4.06), you can find out where your bus is at http://www.its.washington.edu/busviewplus/. (Note: this site can currently take a long time to download, so be forewarned if you have a slow modem connection).

If you have a palmtop PC running the Windows CE operating system, you can take advantage of Embarc. It will provide detailed street and highway information, real-time traffic and bus information, weather and road conditions, and driving instructions within King County. To get your free download of Embarc, point the Internet browser on your palmtop PC to http://www.fastline.com/Embarc_Trial/register.html and follow the directions.

The Smart Trek Web site: Most tools for commuters are described within http://www.SmartTrek.org. Real-time freeway speeds, incidents, and traffic e-mail are available, as are transit schedules, ferry queue updates and options on how best to plan your commute to and from work. If the traffic on your normal route is too congested, the site shows alternatives. Within the next several months, real-time traffic information will be available on cellphones, pagers, in your car, as well as on most handheld organizers and computers. ¶