Drivers traveling the Schuylkill Expressway (Interstate 76) through Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, may notice their commute is getting better, and PennDOT claims for a lot of people, it should be.
The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation says it’s seeing a reduction in both the number of crashes and travel time after launching a pilot program to change speeds along I-76 from King of Prussia to the U.S. Route 1 Interchange in Philadelphia.
The variable speed limit signs were installed along the 14-mile stretch of the Expressway in the spring of last year to help drivers get back and forth faster and safer.
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The electronic signs change the speed limit based on live conditions, like weather and congestion. The speed can vary between 35 mph and 55 mph on busy I-76 that serves around 130,000 drivers daily.
Drivers may not have noticed the shift in speeds, but PennDOT said the automation that creates it is driven from driver data, crowdsourcing and its own information on traffic speeds and road conditions.
PennDOT officials said the variable speeds are part of a bigger project, called the Transform 76 plan. It began in 2018 and costs an estimated $10.5 million, PennDOT said.
Transportation and Transit
“Another part of it is flex lanes, in terms of re-building shoulders and potentially adding an additional lane,” David Adams, PennDOT’s acting senior manager of traffic operations, told NBC10.
PennDOT said it’s also working with SEPTA to let drivers see travel times on public transit versus driving so they can have a faster commute.
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