E-ZPass Tested at State Fair as Way To Clear Traffic

ALBANY — E-ZPass, the popular electronic system that allows motorists to zip through toll booths, is being tested as a way to clear traffic jams. Portable roadside E-ZPass readers are stationed this week outside the New York State Fair near Syracuse to help track the flow of thousands of vehicles. Researchers say the information gleaned from passing cars — which they stress is encrypted and anonymous — will help engineers figure out ways to redirect traffic to less congested routes in the future. The six readers arrayed along Interstate 690 and other access routes to the fair keep track of the time it takes for vehicles with E-ZPass tags to travel from point to point. In effect, cars become probes. "Any time a vehicle passes a pair of readers, you can get that travel time rather than just get a spot speed," a research engineer at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Jeff Wojtowicz, said.