The Maryland State Highway Administration (MSHA) unveiled new upgrades to its 511 service last week, which now allow motorists to receive free, personalized travel times and incident reports via e-mail or text message.
Registration for the program, My MD 511 Direct, occurs online. After creating a profile, travelers select the pre-determined routes they wish to have monitored; they can also choose if they want to receive travel time reports, incident reports or both. Finally, users let the system know how frequently—individual days, weekdays or weekends—and in what timeframes they’d like to receive their automatic updates.
Alerts for most major routes will be available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. MSHA will continue to offer traffic information via its 511 phone line and online.
