WATERLOO – Next time you’re stuck in a traffic jam, the technology that helps get you moving again may come from the skies.

As the Guelph Mercury newspaper recently reported, more and more police forces are using high-end flying drones called UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles) to help clear traffic accident sites quicker.

The Ontario Provincial Police has recently purchased three from Aeryon Labs in Waterloo, Ont., makers of the Scout and SkyRanger models. Two of the OPP’s drones are assigned to the highway safety division. The other is used by the emergency response team.

“We try to deploy them as much as possible because we know the impact of a highway closure,” said area traffic sergeant Brad Muir for the OPP’s highway safety division.

According to Transport Canada estimates from 2007, a one-hour closure of a highway in the GTA costs the economy about $600,000. By deploying the UAV, it can substantially reduce the time it takes to “map” an accident, from an hour to two hours, down to 15 minutes, on average resulting in a 45-minute to 1-hour time savings.

For the OPP, which patrols the 400 series highways, the target time to re-open a highway after a collision is four hours. Last Monday, Aeryon’s Scout UAV was deployed near Bowmanville, when a tractor-trailer carrying gravel overturned and crashed through the centre median. The driver was killed in the accident, forcing the closure of the busy Highway 401 in both directions for much of the day. Muir said the UAV took aerial images within minutes of arriving at the scene, and finished within 15 minutes. Ground photos were taken at the same time, as investigators looked through the evidence.

The drones, made by Aeryon Labs Inc. in a small facility in north Waterloo, are the high-end version, with a price tag ranging from $65,000 up to $120,000, depending on the bells and whistles.

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