Much of the interstate highway system is through predominantly rural areas in remote and sparsely populated areas. A large portion of the system has no available service facilities. These two factors have emphasized the need for an emergency communication system for safety and convenience. Such a system has recently been installed on the Adirondack northway /I-87/. the northway emergency telephone system /nets/ is an installation of 222 telephones along 55 miles of I-87 connected to the nearest three state police stations. The emergency telephones have been extensively used since installed on January 7, 1966. Over 2,800 calls were received during the first seven months of operation. The physical and operational features of the system are described, including location, cost, method of servicing callers, and emergent problems. Over 75 percent of the callers required fuel or vehicular repair; less than 1 percent of all calls were false alarms. The number of calls per mile of facility was found to vary directly with traffic volume, and linear regression is used to indicate the degree of variation. The investigation of the effect of trip purpose on the calling rate revealed no finite relationships, however, a trend is evident indicating a calling rate decrease with increasing traffic volume. Several research concepts are suggested in related subject areas, some of which will form a continuation of the present study. /author/.
Samenvatting