Eyes in the Sky

By Brian Umfleet, Traffic Operations Engineer

On the left, a MoDOT camera along the interstate.
  On the right, a close up of the camera.

Have you ever noticed the cameras above you on the interstates when you should be focused on the road? No need to worry, it’s not the police and you are not being recorded or photographed.  It’s just MoDOT and our 24/7 closed-circuit cameras.  MoDOT has roughly 500 cameras along area interstates and state routes in the St. Louis District, which includes St. Louis, St. Charles, Franklin and Jefferson Counties and the City of St. Louis. 

Our cameras are not spying on you.  They are used by the operators at the Traffic Management Center for traffic monitoring, incident management and traveler information purposes.  They help us help you with your daily commute.  From congestion on the roadways to accidents and stalled vehicles, we use our cameras to provide the appropriate response to that incident – whether it be dispatching our emergency response crews or lighting up one of our message boards.

We also have cameras at some of our traffic signals.  These are not red light cameras, but are used to figure out the timing of signals based on traffic.  As a vehicle moves towards an intersection it enters the camera’s field of view which alerts the signal to change. 

If you would like to see what we see on the roads you can access our traffic cameras by going to the MoDOT Gateway Guide home page.