MS2 Blog

Tuesday, February 14, 2017

FHWA Performance Measures Rules Delayed

From the Association of Metropolitan Planning Organizations (AMPO): The FHWA published a notice that the new effective dates for both PM2 and PM3 are now March 21, 2017. The official notice can be found here: PM2 and PM3 Delayed Effective Date This notice is consistent with the memo issued on January 20, 2017 regarding the temporary postponement of the effective dates of any, and most new, regulations published that are not yet in effect. I... [Read More]

Friday, February 3, 2017

New Canadian Traffic Monitoring Practices Guide Coming Soon

Attention Canadian traffic monitoring professionals - according to an article posted on the Transportation Association of Canada (TAC) website on January 6, 2017 , the TAC's Chief Engineers’ Council has approved a national-level traffic monitoring practices guide.  In the US, the FHWA's Traffic Monitoring Guide is the go-to guidance document for all state highway agencies engaged in traffic monitoring procedures.The article says, "the Guide will ... [Read More]

Wednesday, January 25, 2017

The 2016 TMG Updates and an Alternative Method of Calculating AADT

The need for traffic data at the Federal and State levels requires that States develop a well-designed traffic monitoring program to support all business areas. In late 2016 the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) updated the Traffic Monitoring Guide (TMG), which presents recommendations to be used by State departments of transportation (DOTs). These recommendations are intended to improve and advance the future of traffic monitoring while cons... [Read More]

Wednesday, January 4, 2017

Our Team Today

Here’s a picture of our team. We’ve grown a lot since our founding in 2003. Since you talk to us, send us emails and Zendesk requests, do web meetings with us, and use our software, we thought you might want to know who we are. Please let us know how MS2 can help you better map, manage and analyze your transportation data sets. Happy New Year from your friends at MS2. Back row (from l to r): Jim Valenta, Laura Creagh, Ben Chen, Lev Wood, J... [Read More]

Tuesday, December 20, 2016

MS2 to Attend 2017 TRB Annual Meeting in Washington, DC

The Transportation Research Board (TRB) 96th Annual Meeting will be held January 8–12, 2017, at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center, in Washington, D.C.  The information-packed program is expected to attract more than 12,000 transportation professionals from around the world.If you are planning on attending, please stop by our booth in the exhibit hall.  We are booth #309. Exhibit hours:Sunday, January 8; 4:00 - 7:00 Monday, January 9; 9:0... [Read More]

Wednesday, November 23, 2016

Crash Data Misinterpretation

In this fall’s mind-bending sci-fi movie, “Arrival”, a group of American scientists, including a top-notch linguist played by actor Amy Adams, tries to learn an alien language and to teach English to the Aliens.A critical take-away of the movie is the importance of interpretation of written language. In this case the interpretation of a single word, “weapon”. America’s science team pleads with the CIA and armed forces that “weapon” can have numer... [Read More]

Wednesday, August 10, 2016

MS2 Beats Client Service Industry Average

It’s great to have software that solves traffic data management and analysis problems but it’s even better when the user receives quick, responsive client service. That describes MS2 according to Zendesk and an analysis of 107 client service ticket requests submitted between May and August 2016. The charts below come from Zendesk, a leading web-based client service solution and one of the main tools of MS2’s client support system. As soon ... [Read More]

Thursday, April 14, 2016

GIS-T - All Things Geospatial in Transportation

MS2 attended the recent Geospatial Information Systems for Transportation (GIS-T) Symposium in Raleigh, North Carolina. As a vendor, we saw lots of our friends, software users and prospective clients. We learned that annual HPMS data reporting is consuming the time of data monitoring professionals and planners in DOT GIS departments around the country. We also learned that ESRI's Roads and Highways software is increasingly popular with DOT... [Read More]

Friday, April 1, 2016

MS2's New Explainer Video

It's April 1, but this is no trick. MS2 has a new "explainer" video on our YouTube channel. An explainer video is just that - it's used by companies to introduce a new website or a product or to answer the questions "who are you?" and "what do you do?" In this case, we do this in 1-minute, 12-seconds. Creating a good explainer video isn't as easy as editing video clips of your cat hopping around your furniture at home. We had to create/e... [Read More]

Thursday, February 25, 2016

Indiana MPOs Gather to Discuss Transportation Planning

Transportation planners and engineers from MPOs around the state of Indiana gathered for a two-day conference at the Horizon Convention Center in Muncie, Indiana in October 2015. Representatives from the state Department of Transportation (INDOT) and the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) were also in attendance to focus on how Indiana MPOs can help redefine transportation to create healthier, active communities. Greg Katter, PE, INDOT Act... [Read More]