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PennDOT and PA Turnpike Commission Release Survey

More than 190 million vehicles travel on the Pennsylvania Turnpike each year — about 520,000 a day.

The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation and the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission have worked to make that drive as easy as possible, and now they are asking for your help.

PennDOT and the commission have released a survey looking for travelers’ opinions on the services the agencies provide.

PennDOT spokeswoman Erin Waters-Trasatt said the survey concentrates on how travelers access and use PennDOT’s 511PA and the commission’s Turnpike Roadway Information Program (TRIP).

“We’re trying to see what people use the most," she said. "We know that things like our traffic cameras are very popular, but we want to see what other services they might use that we’re providing them or they might be using from other private providers, so we’re looking for the public to shape what exactly the future looks like."

Travelers can go online to check 511PA’s traffic-delay warnings, weather forecasts and the views of 679 traffic cameras.

“The public can use our traffic cameras to check them before they head out in the morning or head home so they can see if there’s some certain choke points or certain roadways they may want to avoid in case there was a slow down or an incident,” Waters-Trasatt said.                                                                                                  

TRIP gives drivers real-time traffic conditions, weather alerts and travel information online, through cell phones or on the road.

The survey asks how likely drivers are to change their travel plans based on TRIP and 511PA.

Waters-Trasatt said PennDOT and the commission want to use the survey to plan for future projects and services.

“What we’re aiming to learn through this survey is one: what services people want and whether they’re getting it and two: whether there are any improvements that we can make to the 511PA or TRIP systems,” Waters-Trasatt said.

The survey can be found on PennDOT’s and the commission’s websites up to the end of July.

Jess is from Elizabeth Borough, PA and is a junior at Duquesne University with a double major in journalism and public relations. She was named as a fellow in the WESA newsroom in May 2013.