New Nebraska roads center expected to give drivers more immediate info on hazards

A brand new Nebraska Division of Transportation operations heart in Omaha ought to present drivers with extra instant info on hazards alongside Nebraska’s highways and interstates.

State officers gathered Tuesday to rejoice the opening of the middle, which is basically a merger of the division’s earlier two operation facilities — with one situated in Omaha and Lincoln every. The brand new mixed heart in Omaha is situated at a Nebraska State Patrol workplace alongside South 108th Road.

In response to Jessica Sherwood, supervisor of the middle, workers members have entry to greater than 380 dwell site visitors cameras throughout the state. With entry to these feeds and different info now underneath one roof, workers members will have the ability to extra shortly and successfully talk with one another, first responders and finally the general public about obstacles and hazards on Nebraska’s roads.

That features distributing real-time info through varied strategies together with the smartphone navigation app Waze, which supplies crowdsourced site visitors info, and greater than 330 message boards throughout the state.

“There’s nothing worse than to come back up on an incident unaware the place you want you would have took that exit simply previous to the incident,” NDOT Director John Selmer stated. “We hope that this heart will assist meet the wishes and expectation of our public.”

Sherwood stated the middle will function in any respect hours. That’s a change from when there have been two district operation facilities, which didn’t function at a full-time capability and relied on individuals engaged on name.

“The state operation heart’s No. 1 purpose and precedence is to offer probably the most correct and well timed info to our touring public all through the state,” she stated.

The creation of the state operation heart marks the newest in what Gov. Pete Ricketts stated is his administration’s effort to create efficiencies in state authorities underneath a “philosophy of steady enchancment.” Ricketts pointed to how NDOT was fashioned out of the merger of the state’s Division of Roads and Division of Aeronautics in 2017.

“Our mission is to create alternatives for Nebraskans (and a) simpler, extra environment friendly and customer-focused state authorities,” he stated.