MILWAUKEE — Interstates throughout Milwaukee County are equipped with a total of 20 wrong-way driver alert systems, designed and engineered by TAPCO. Still, at least two wrong-way drivers made it onto Milwaukee County interstates undetected this week.
TMJ4 News has confirmed that neither of the areas involved was equipped with the wrong-way alert system technology.
The first incident was a crash on Sunday night near I-794 and 6th Street. A wrong-way driver crashed into an innocent driver who was taken to the hospital with serious injuries.
Then, the next night, a suspected drunk wrong-way driver drove head-on into the path of Vice President Kamala Harris' motorcade along I-94 near the Marquette Interchange.
After learning that the solution to these dangerous incidents may be developed in Milwaukee County, TMJ4 News Lighthouse Reporter Ryan Jenkins went to the TAPCO Headquarters in Brown Deer. TAPCO is a traffic safety solutions company.
The company's Chief Revenue Officer, Rob Prosser, gave a demonstration of the technology.
Watch: AI used to detect wrong-way drivers in MKE; Why two incidents went undetected
"The AI is in the camera itself and what that's doing is learning the behavior and patterns that it sees to build a better network of data to feed off of," said Prosser.
The systems have been around Milwaukee County since 2012, when the County and TAPCO began to partner on a solution to issues near, what is now, American Family Field.
The County has 20 systems of the 22 in the state of Wisconsin. Today, a total of 33 states use the technology, which not only alerts drivers when they're traveling the wrong way but can alert authorities and other drivers through messages that appear on displays both along the interstate and inside people's vehicles.
"It's a system that's meant to detect, alert, and try to get the driver to correct. That's the primary goal is to get the driver to turn around and not proceed up the ramp. If we're unable to do that then we'll send an alert, typically to local emergency officers to do whatever they need to do," said Prosser.
Wrong-way driving results in roughly 500 crashes per year across the nation, according to the Federal Highway Administration. This technology can reduce these crashes by about 38%, according to research done by the Texas Transportation Institute's Assessment of the Effectiveness of Wrong-Way Driving Countermeasures and Mitigation Methods.
So why aren't there more of the systems on our interstates? Prosser points to funding challenges that many municipalities run into.
"We're hopeful that we can work together with the DOT and with the county to provide those systems," he said.
An example of AI working to solve the issue of wrong-way driving and it's being developed right here in our own backyard as the problem continues to affect our communities.
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