Pavement sensors help Cranberry public works officials keep track of road conditions
CRANBERRY TOWNSHIP, Pa. (KDKA) -- You may drive over a road in Cranberry and not realize the very innovative technology being used there.
Believe it or not, there are sensors under some of the roads that tells the public works team in Cranberry a lot, and there are a lot of screens at the Cranberry Traffic Operations Center to monitor road conditions.
"We're really monitoring all quadrants of the township," said Kelly Maurer, Director of Cranberry Public Works.
Most of the screens focus on the intersections and traffic lights, but there is information being collected on Maurer's computer that everyone can see.
"The results were pretty amazing," she said.
The results are data from temperature pavement sensors and Cranberry Township has seven of them, including one under the MSA Thruway.
"The temperatures are gonna rise to maybe 28 on Thursday," said Maurer. "But the pavement temperatures are showing 38 [degrees] so we will be seeing a melt – and we will have to treat any runoff or any refreeze that evening."
There's even an app that the workers here can use.
"Our crews, our managers – then they know," said Maurer. "They can see they might be called out at three in the morning, and they can go to bed knowing it's a nice work-life balance for them."
Maurer said monitoring the air and pavement temperatures, precipitation, and road grip help taxpayers.
"We've found we've saved 16 callouts last year, almost $200,000."
The trucks maintaining roadways are used only when they need to be used.
"We're not putting salt down when we don't need to, and that saves the environment."
Maurer said that at the moment, there are other municipalities inquiring about implementing this pavement sensor technology as well.