Mardi Gras season in Mobile is no stranger to traffic backups as thousands of revelers converge for the excitement of each parade that rolls through downtown streets.
For the past two years, a team of ALDOT and city traffic engineers has staged a one-of-a-kind monitoring center designed to ease congestion by keep up with traffic signals. On-site at the center, engineers communicate with computers that run the signals and make modifications as needed.
ALDOT Signal Systems Engineer Jeremy Borden says they do this starting a couple of hours before the first parade of the day.
“When we start seeing more traffic pick up, we’ll start pushing plans out to the traffic signals wherever we need to to give them, for example, more green time on the main line,” said Borden.
If a road starts to get too congested, engineers can push different traffic plans, especially on roads such as US-98 (Government Street) and those coming off interstates 10 and 65. The city of Mobile then uses this data for its Mardi Gras opt-in text service that gives real-time updates about weather delays and parking information.
ALDOT will be monitoring traffic signals each parade day during Mardi Gras. For more information and updates about Mardi Gras in Mobile this season, visit www.cityofmobile.org/mardigras and text “MOBILEMARDIGRAS” to 91896.
