Las Vegas’ ‘mapping vehicles’ collect new data, facilitates infrastructure troubleshooting

LAS VEGAS, Nev. (FOX5) - The City of Las Vegas expects to have an easier time responding to traffic problems.

The results are in from an extensive study conducted by the city, which you might remember from “mapping vehicles” driving around last year collecting data, particularly street signs, lights, and traffic signals.

“A lot of that infrastructure that we had collected 20 years ago was definitely needing a refresh,” the city’s Traffic Engineer, Joseph Norby, told FOX5 Monday.

During the study, which was conducted in partnership with Cyclomedia, those mapping vehicles drove about 2,600 miles worth of roads in the city.

They collected a huge amount of data, helping the city to fill its log of all its “assets,” or things like street signs and traffic lights. That data showed 30,000 more signs and 10,000 more lights than the city previously had in its system.

Now, because of that data, the City is much better able to fix its infrastructure if it gets damaged.

“If something goes down in a motor vehicle accident, if something fails in some way, we’re able to know exactly what was out there so we can go out and replace the sign that was there,” Norby explained.

The data can also help the city deal with crime.

“Copper wire theft has been on the rise throughout the Valley, and it’s been a great tool to be able to go out there a little more quickly and remedy and fix some of these outages throughout the city,” Norby continued.

On top of that, Norby says the city’s complaint line is a lot more streamlined now.

“Sometimes they’ll complain to the wrong department and it doesn’t quite get to us, but with this solution, we’re able to get those customer complaints straight in through our web portals into the technicians’ hands to be able to address them a lot faster,” Norby said.

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