Early warning system: Sensors will let drivers know elk are on road

By JACOB GOLDSTEIN, Chronicle Staff Writer

If you've spent much time on country roads, the scene is familiar: You're driving down some rural highway just after dusk, and a deer bounds into the headlights 20 yards in front of the car. Your heart skips a beat and you slam on the breaks, screeching to a stop as the animal runs into the night.

Or not.

More than 200 people and tens of thousands of animals die each year in animal-vehicle collisions. Some 30,000 people are injured annually in the wrecks, which cause over $1 billion in property damages, according to Marcel Huijser, a researcher at the Western Transportation Institute at Montana State University.

"Collisions between vehicles and large animals have been increasing nationwide," Huijser said. As people drive more frequently, and over longer distances, the number of human and animal casualties continues to increase.

The problem has caught the attention of traffic experts nationwide, and the departments of transportation from 15 states have come together to fund a $900,000 project Huijser is undertaking to study high-tech methods for reducing animal-vehicle collisions.

One of the study's two field sites is along a single mile of Highway 191, where the road cuts through Yellowstone National Park about 50 miles south of Belgrade.

A crew was working at the site last week, getting the bugs out of a prototype system Huijser hopes will help drivers steer clear of the elk that populate the area.

More importantly, Huijser said, if the system is successful, it could add "another tool to our toolbox of mitigation measures" for reducing animal-vehicle collisions across the country.

The prototype "is basically a beam-break-type system," said Steve Miller, the engineer in charge of the team doing the hands-on work on the project.

The system works on the same principle that makes a bell ring when you walk into a convenience store: a beam travels between two sensors, and the sensors send out a message whenever the beam is broken.

There are 14 pairs of solar-powered sensors along the mile-long stretch of 191. The sensors, which are mounted 4 feet off the ground on poles set back between 10 and 60 feet from the road, create an invisible rope of high-frequency radio signal. Whenever the signal is broken -- say, by an elk meandering past -- the sensors alert a central computer.

The computer then triggers warning lights to flash on the roadway, alerting drivers to slow down.

At least, that's the theory. But technical difficulties have plagued the system since it was installed last fall.

"Some of the equipment didn't work the way we'd planned on, and so we had to adapt," Miller said. "That's typical in this sort of development."

But according to Miller, the system is nearly ready to go, and the Montana Department of Transportation should soon be ready to flip the switch to turn it on.

Pierre Jomini, an MDT safety specialist, said the system on 191 is one of several test projects in the state that address the issue of animal-vehicle collisions.

A goat overpass was built near Glacier National Park to allow the animals to get across U.S. 2. And a project is slated for U.S. 93 between Evaro and Polson to build deer-friendly culverts.

Jomini also mentioned a study in which Swedish scientists applied a synthetic chemical designed to smell like wolf urine on trees near roads. When the deer smelled the chemical, they apparently turned around and headed the other way.

There are no plans for a wolf urine study in Montana, Jomini said, but he hopes Huijser's study on 191, along with the other projects under way in the state, will help highway engineers figure out how to keep vehicles and animals apart.

"It is always part of overall highway safety," Jomini said. "What can you do to reduce your crashes on your highways?"

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