Case Study: PennDOT Improves Incident Detection and Traffic Management with INRIX Crowd-Sourced Data

Pennsylvania DOT Using Crowd Sourced Data to Assess and Improve Statewide Traffic Incident Management (TIM)

Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT) manages nearly 40,000 miles of roadway and needed a better way to detect and respond to traffic incidents across its statewide network, especially outside areas covered by ITS equipment. To close those visibility gaps, PennDOT evaluated crowdsourced traffic data from INRIX and Waze alongside traditional agency-based detection methods.

INRIX helped PennDOT analyze a full year of crash and congestion data using INRIX congestion events, integrated into PennDOT’s Traffic Operations Analysis tool and new Traffic Alerts Dashboard. The results showed INRIX detected 81.2% of reportable crashes and was first to detect 47% of them, outperforming Waze and traditional RCRS methods; INRIX and Waze together detected 86.7% of crashes statewide. Based on the findings, PennDOT improved RTMC procedures, expanded operator focus hours in one district, and is developing automated DMS messaging to better protect stopped traffic and reduce secondary crashes.

Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT)