Washington Dumps Wireless Rest Areas

Wireless Internet access will no longer be available at Washington's highway safety rest areas due to a lack of consistent subscribers, said the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT). In 2006, 28 of WSDOT's 42 rest areas became "Wi-Fi Hotspots" enabling travelers to look up current road conditions, check e-mail and gather other travel information on their wireless devices. Road conditions and other traveler information resources were available free via WSDOT's Web site.

The system was a partnership with Parsons Transportation Group and Road Connect Inc., with WSDOT sharing a portion of the revenue generated by subscriptions. The system was paid for solely by Parsons and Road Connect. The lack of revenue generated from subscriptions prompted the two companies to discontinue the service effective Sept. 1.

WSDOT believed the Wi-Fi project fit in with the agency's safety objectives. Washington has some of the lowest traffic fatality percentages in the nation, yet hundreds of accidents occur each year on state highways due to road fatigue

"Twenty million people a year visit our rest areas and we hoped this feature would provide an incentive for drivers to take a break and access the Internet for business, or go to our site for road conditions," said Doug Pierce, WSDOT's maintenance manager in charge of rest areas. "With people already having Internet access on cell phones and other wireless devices the number of subscribers didn't meet up to projected use estimates."

The terms of the contract amendment with Parsons and Road Connect enables WSDOT to take ownership of the system hardware. WSDOT is looking into how it might use the system in the future to provide electronic messaging at rest areas for road conditions and travel alerts.