What do you want? Information! (highway edition)

We spend a ton of money on intelligent transportation systems and are rapidly expanding our ability to collect, analyze, and display traffic information.  How much of this high-tech stuff reaches the customer?  Not enough.

As one example, I recently saw a display of the cool things that folks at the University of Maryland are doing…..

But visiting the Maryland House rest area I saw nothing but a dumb map………….

Smart phones, GPS systems, and satellite radio are putting lots of information into travelers’ hands, but the public sector really needs to become more customer focused too.

Update:  On a later visit to Maryland House, I did see a live camera view!  So at least some data is making it to the consumer!