City of Roseville, Cali.

Full-color LED Technology Strenghtens Municipal Traffic Plan

Just 16 miles from Sacramento and 105 miles from San Francisco, Roseville takes progressive steps to develop a strong sense of community and to stake its claim in Northern California.

Like most American cities of its size, Roseville experienced major growth which pulled the developmental focus away from its downtown area. As a result, the city found a dramatic increase in the amount of traffic on its arterial roads.

In 2009, Roseville adopted its Downtown Specific Plan to revitalize the core of the city. Part of this plan is the increasingly popular Downtown Tuesday Nights, a weekly street fair which brings hundreds of residents - and traffic - to the downtown scene.

Four years earlier, the Roseville Department of Public Works hired a consultant to develop an ITS Master Plan to curb increasing traffic congestion and to provide a higher level of service to commuters and visitors.

As part of the ITS Master Plan, the consultant recommended the use of LED dynamic message signs (DMS) to communicate with motorists and to provide traffic incident managment on arterial roads. To pay for the displays, Roseville secured grants from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act as well as a voter-approved proposition in 2006. This allowed the city to deploy the DMS and the rest of the ITS Master Plan without affecting their general fund.

After reviewing proposals from several vendors, Roseville Public Works chose the full-color LED display technology provided by the Daktronics Vanguard® VF-2320 DMS.

When Roseville's City Council expressed concern over the physical appearance of the LED displays, the ITS team went to the drawing board and put together a sleek mounting structure which features the city's rose logo.

Today, seven of these full-color, frontaccess displays show warning messages whenever there is a traffic incident on their respective roads.

In addition to safety messages, Roseville also uses these NTCIP-compliant displays to guide motorists to popular shopping areas such as the Westfield Galleria and also to promote local events like Downtown Tuesday Nights.

"It's a great way for us to connect with our community and to promote these things which mean so much to our city," said Jason Shykowski, Roseville's Senior Civil Engineer in Traffic Operations. "Roseville invests so much time and money on branding and renovation - and it just made sense to tie all of it together with these DMS."

The Roseville Traffic Operations team uses the intuitive Vanguard v4 software to create MUTCD-specified graphics in addition to custom messages. These frames are strategically scheduled to promote safety, to encourage people to attend events and to provide convenient wayfinding information for visiting motorists.

Thanks to the NTCIP compliance of the VF-2320 DMS, the city can add more displays to their system as they grow.

"The displays have been a wonderful addition to our ITS Master Plan," said Shykowski. "We've received very positive feedback from our residents and I really enjoy using these displays to keep them safe and informed