Signal lights detect animals crossing highway in Yellowstone
BOZEMAN, Mont. — A solar-powered signal system to detect animals on U.S. 191 where it crosses a portion of Yellowstone National Park is expected to become operational soon.
The one-mile section of the highway, about 60 miles south of Bozeman, was chosen because passing vehicles collide with and kill numerous elk there every year.
The $349,000 system uses high-frequency radio beams to detect the presence of large animals, such as elk, bison and moose, and then sets off solar-powered blinking lights to alert drivers.
Terry Wilson, of Sensor Technologies and Systems based in Scottsdale, Ariz., said the goal is to have the system operating by mid-July. He said the sensors have been installed over the past 16 months.
Workers have installed 14 pairs of sensors on either side of the highway. When an animal crosses the road, it breaks the radio beams traveling between the sensors. The system then conveys that information through wireless radios to a computer, which triggers yellow warning lights, Wilson said.
One of the delays the company faced involved wireless radios not working properly in Montana’s cold weather, he said.
The Western Transportation Institute at Montana State University is overseeing the project.
Marcel Huijser, a research ecologist at the institute, said he has been concerned with the delays in getting the system going and fears other problems may surface.
At this point, the radios for 12 of the 14 sensors are working, Wilson said, and plans are to replace the two errant radios in early July.
He said similar projects elsewhere in this country and in Europe have needed three months to two years to get the systems working properly, and then they reduced collisions with animals by as much as 80 percent.
The project is funded by the Federal Highway Administration and departments of transportation in 15 states, including Montana and Wyoming.
The Arizona firm’s contract expires Dec. 31. “We have very little time to evaluate it,” Huijser said.