Canadian City Uses Network Monitoring to Avoid Traffic Jams

Any large city puts its network of traffic signals to a severe test during drive-time rush hours as cars, trucks and other conveyances stream through the city. That’s why a major Canadian city came to Ipswitch for a network monitoring solution to monitor equipment installed in hundreds of traffic locations throughout its sprawling metropolis.

The IT team there told us that a busted or out-of-synch traffic signal can cause a traffic snarl miles long in just minutes if it isn’t handled quickly or serviced before a small performance issue becomes a major problem. And camera outages make it impossible to see traffic backups until they’ve affected hundreds or thousands of vehicles.

On this sprawling network, WhatsUp Gold now monitors 300-plus Ethernet switches at traffic intersections and their interfaces, cameras and traffic signals. As a result, managing traffic flow runs much more smoothly, especially during drive-time rush hours, without stretching personnel resources.

The IT team is now going down the right road

• Remote monitoring saves 100s of hours a month visiting onsite locations
• Far more helpful to determine full operability than simple ping-based testing
• Alerts administrators to signs of equipment trouble so problems can be dealt with in advance of full-blown failures
• Overall device reliability increased

Want to see what WhatsUp Gold can do for your organization? Download it for free, and kick the tires for a month or so.