Utah Traffic Lab, University Of Utah College Of Engineering

The Traffic Lab (UTL) is a unique applied research facility at the University of Utah. It is supervised by faculty and staffed by graduate students. The heart of the lab is a Traffic Operations Center and is connected to Utah Traffic Control Centers. In an emergency, it can serve as a communications center. Its role is to develop new ways to control, monitor, and manage road traffic. The lab has a long standing relationship with the Utah Department of Transportation, which commissioned over 40 studies. The Mountain Plains Consortium (MPC) is a regional transportation center, funded through the USDOT Universities Transportation Centers program. UTL is a member of MPC. Faculty communicate with engineers through a dedicated video conference facility. UTL employee's have the opportunity to present their work to DOT engineers from 12 western states. The lab’s video conference facility is also the base for sending and receiving graduate courses in transportation studies. Dr. Peter Martin, Lab Director and Professor of Civil Engineering, teaches courses on advanced traffic signal systems. UTL has been busy since Governor Mike Leavitt was seeking innovative ways to finance a new highway in Davis County. The lab study showed how a demand sensitive high-tech toll system could fund up to half the cost of the Legacy Highway. Since that first study, UTL has expanded by addressing both local and international research interests. Locally, the lab has studied many questions that affect traffic efficiency: How do advanced traffic responsive signal systems really perform? Should we re-build our highways under the traditional form or pay for 'design-build'? Always ready to research, the lab sustains a core research effort that reaches an international audience, with a primary focus on advanced traffic signal systems. Ongoing research at the University of Utah is helping to advance the state of the art technology and systems design to improve safety and ease congestion.