US Highway 2 at Kalispell, Montana, features a dangerous, non-signalized intersection that has been the site of numerous crashes. The two-lane, high-speed highway intersects with Springcreek Road/Dern Road and has no turn lane. The goal of the project was to improve safety at the intersection without adding lanes or installing signals. Because there is no turn lane, when eastbound cars need to turn left onto Springcreek Road they are forced to stop in the lane of travel and hope that cars approaching from behind see them and stop in time. Unfortunately, too many drivers didn’t see the stopped vehicles until it was too late, resulting in numerous crashes. The posted speed limit on that stretch of US Highway 2 is 65 mph, and the road is heavily traveled by large semis. Finally, funding issues made a build-out of the intersection unfeasible.

The 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics highlighted an issue facing much of China: infrastructure construction is not keeping up with population demand. China is one of the fastest growing vehicle markets in the world with an estimated 20,000 new vehicles hitting the road each day. The problems at the Olympics were exasperated by an increase in tourist traffic and a need to quickly and easily install an intelligent transportation system powerful enough to handle Beijing’s tough traffic problems.The systems created for the Olympic Games needed to be highly accurate and reliable. Detection devices also had to accurately detect traffic over eight to 10 lanes. Inductive loops take too long to install and were unreliable and unable to adapt to changing traffic patterns.