SACRAMENTO, California — New electronic messaging signs are on the horizon for Highway 50 in Sacramento and El Dorado counties, along I-5 in the Sacramento area, and Highway 70 and Highway 99 in Butte County.
The new signs are set to turn on by September 1, on an as-needed basis. Drivers may have seen the new signs reading “cms test in prog(ress); ends 09/01/2023” on the boards.
The signs will be used to keep drivers aware of crashes, lane closures, and even construction. Instead of your typical text-only signs, Caltrans says these will communicate information more quickly through full-color photos and messaging.
Drivers have seen the older, changeable message signs with amber letters along local freeways alerting drivers to what’s happening on the road. About 28 of the new signs will be used alongside the nearly 80 text-only signs within District Three.
Andrew Chang is the Branch Chief of TMS operations at the Transportation Management Center for Caltrans in District Three. He deals with electric elements along highways like CCTV, meters, and of course, electric messaging signs.
"As much information that we can give the public that’s accurate, reliable, and helps them navigate our roadways in a safe and reliable way — the earlier that information is given to them and provided in a right, easy format, then the easier it is for the traveling public to navigate our roads," said Chang.
Most of the messages drivers see on message boards along highways in Sacramento, Placer, El Dorado, Nevada, Butte, Yolo, Colusa, and Sutter counties come from the Regional Transportation Management Center in Rancho Cordova. This is where California Highway Patrol works with Caltrans to monitor traffic and road conditions 24/7.
In the event of a crash or closure, information is sent to the message boards to give drivers a heads-up. Some messages, like fog alerts, are automated.
"We have a hybrid of both that are changeable, some automated and a majority of custom messages you see that are incident-related come from this building," said Chang.
Luis Munoz is the Branch Chief Engineer at the Regional Traffic Management Center. He said the new system will help get messages out.
"Pictures have a thousand words. With the old system, we could only have three lines with 16 characters so that was a lot of brainstorming on how we wanted to convey messages to the traveling public," said Munoz.
Caltrans says the messaging signs will also be an asset to communicate messages to non-English speaking individuals while driving. Munoz says the signs will only be used to alert people of incidents but traffic-related campaigns could also be seen up there.
"Some motorists may respond quicker by seeing an image than reading a line of text. So that’s why we made that transition from amber-colored to a full-color sign," said Chang.
The signs will start to be used by operators on an as-needed basis beginning September 1, until further guidelines are developed. Chang says messages they create get recorded and stored, and as more incidents arise they can pull from stock messages when things happen. Caltrans, operators, maintenance staff, and CHP are learning to use this and respond more quickly.
District Three of Caltrans will be the first in California to launch these messaging signs, though some other areas of California have piloted the technology.
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