I-290 Interchange with I-90 and I-94 Worst Bottleneck in Nation
Information from The Journal of Commerce Online

According to an article in The Journal of Commerce Online late this spring, the American Transportation Research Institute and the Federal Highway Administration are using information collected from over half a million trucks on the road to determine the worst bottlenecks and plan new infrastructure funding.

Approximately 650,000 trucks are contributing data about their speed and location in order to highlight the worst congestion points in the United States and help federal, state and local governments planning departments get the highways flowing smoothly once again.

Called the Freight Performance Measures Initiative, motor carriers which have already installed communications and tracking systems in their fleets are asking their drivers to participate in the study according to Daniel Murray, vice president of research at ATRI, the research division for the American Trucking Associations. Those

Within a year, the same software tool which makes the information gathered available to government agencies, motor carriers and shippers on the web will also be accessible by the public. The tool can measure truck speeds at any given place and time along 25 interstate highways.

ATRI also released its 2009 Bottleneck Analysis in late May of this year. After studying one hundred major bottleneck sites, the worst bottleneck in the country is the I-290 interchange with I-90 and I-94 in Chicago. The average speed at 5 p.m. is only 15 mph. The average peak hour speed is 23 mph, and the average non-peak hour speed is 33 mph.