PA Turnpike High-Speed Upgrade (No, You Won't Get Pulled Over)
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - The Pennsylvania Turnpike will be getting a high-speed upgrade, but it doesn't have anything to do with how fast you drive…for now, anyway.
The Turnpike Commission wants a fiber-optic network -- broadband for official communications and data -- to replace an aging digital microwave system.
"It would help us to be better in responding to incidents," says Commission spokesman Carl DeFebo. "It would also benefit the commonwealth overall because we're bringing this network capacity for their use as well."
DeFebo says they need the bandwidth, considering the first responder communications along with traffic cameras, digital message boards, and E-ZPass transactions.
But there's also an eye to the future, he says -- self-driving cars…
"We've had a committee of folks taking a look at autonomous vehicles and trying to prepare for that and communications and wifi, it's going to be a huge need."
The project is a public-private partnership, where an outside firm would pay to design, build, run, and maintain the network for the state and would lease any extra capacity.
Construction is expected to begin in 2018.