UMD Technology Finding Success Overseas

Congestion monitoring technology developed at the University of Maryland’s Center for Advanced Transportation Technology (CATT) is finding success overseas reports a recent Gazette article. The technology which has been adapted commercially by Traffax, Inc. monitors travel time of vehicles on both freeways and arterials based on re-identification of vehicles containing Bluetooth wireless equipment.

Companies can purchase units known as BluFax from Traffax, Inc. to monitor not only travel time of vehicles but of pedestrians as well. Using sensors that detect Bluetooth signals from devices such as cell phones and global positioning systems (GPS) Blufax can accurately estimate travel time along the freeway, arterial, or sidewalk where the units are set up. Because Bluetooth technology is unidentifiable as to what device it came from and whose device it belongs to; privacy concerns are nonexistent.

A company in Australia has found Blufax beneficial in measuring the delay imposed on vehicles due to road construction activities. Because of Traffax’s overseas success they were asked to participate and present at an international trade panel which was geared toward small and medium-sized enterprises to encourage foreign trade.

To read the full article, visit The Gazette.

About Traffax, Inc.

Traffax Inc. was founded in 2008 by the technology inventors, Dr. Stan Young, Phil Tarnoff, and Nick Ganig. Traffax Inc. took advantages of the University of Maryland’s business incubator program that assists students and faculty commercialize their intellectual property. Traffax holds exclusive license to the traffic monitoring technology, and began selling equipment based on the technology in late 2008. In 2009 Traffax received an award from the state due to the positive environmental impact of the technology, and also won an SBIR grant from the Federal Highway Administration to assist with commercialization. Traffax equipment is represented on three continents, and plans a major deployment in our nations capital in 2010. Visit Traffax online at www.traffaxinc.com

About CATT

The Center for Advanced Transportation Technology (CATT) in the A. James Clark School of Engineering Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Maryland, College Park, was created in order to respond to the significant changes brought about by increasing use of advanced technologies in the transportation field. A permanent staff of ITS professionals and affiliated faculty of the Department of Civil Engineering supports CATT. All offer extensive knowledge and experience in the areas of ITS technology, traffic engineering and control, systems analysis, and operations research. Visit CATT on the web at www.catt.umd.edu.

Published March 8, 2010