Many Montgomery County motorists may not realize the role the Northstar Traffic Operations Center—which optimizes traffic flow in and out of the county—plays in their daily commutes.
Operated and funded by Montgomery County Precinct 3, the NTOC opened in Conroe in 2007 as the central facility for Precinct 3’s traffic signal system. Similar to the Houston TranStar system the center is made up of field operations technicians and traffic operations staff whose primary functions are to monitor traffic on Precinct 3 roadways, NTOC Manager Charles Cobb said.
“Traffic management is a key component to mobility,” Cobb said. “Staff constantly monitor roadways, traffic signals and relays pertinent information to the public to help with the daily commutes via social media. Northstar has drastically cut down on response time for technicians, which enhances mobility for residents.”
Over the past decade, the center has grown to become one of the largest traffic-management facilities in the region, aside from that of the city of Houston, Harris County and the Texas Department of Transportation, with 90 traffic signals, 200 traffic cameras and more than 1,500 network devices used to monitor traffic countywide, Cobb said.
