Ohio test uses drones to monitor highway traffic

Highway traffic monitoring is frequently... less than efficient. Fixed cameras can't catch problems beyond their immediate location, while aircraft are both costly and inevitably have to fly back to a distant base to refuel. These systems may soon get a robotic upgrade, though. Ohio State University is leading a pilot program that will use drones for roadway and traffic monitoring along a 35-mile highway stretch (the Smart Mobility Corridor) between Dublin and East Liberty. The dry run will see drones feed tracking data to the Ohio Department of Transportation's Traffic Management Center to complement data from existing systems.