ABSTRACT
To address the growing problem of congestion,
delays, and overall traffic issues, DelDOT
(Delaware Department of Transportation) established the Transportation Management Center (TMC) in 1997.
DelDOT-TMC also coordinates and
manages DelDOT’s response to any incident that impacts the multimodal transportation system within the
state of Delaware. Among other things, DelDOT-TMC collects traffic, roadway
weather, and hydrological data using over a
thousand monitoring devices installed throughout the state of Delaware. After data has been obtained, DelDOT-TMC analyzes
and disseminates real-time travel
information to the public through DelDOT’s website (online interactive
maps), smartphone application, traffic advisory radio, and social media sites
such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Blog, and Flickr; however, the utilization
and usability of this information by the public are, for the most part,
unknown. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the global responsibilities
of DelDOT-TMC and assess the process that DelDOT-TMC uses to gather, process,
analyze, and distribute traffic and roadway weather data to the public. The
study employs a survey to assess the utilization of DelDOT-TMC’s products, i.e., DelDOT Mobile App, WTMC 1380 AM
travel advisory radio, DelDOT’s public website, DelDOT’s social media, as well
as the usability of the DelDOT mobile app to check DART (Delaware Authority for
Regional Transportation) First State transit service schedules.