Electronic billboards in Georgia to carry messages about snow, ice, flooding, detours

By Jeremiah McWilliams

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

The outdoor advertising industry is close to finalizing an agreement with the Georgia Department of Transportation to display winter weather travel info on electronic billboards that have appeared around metro Atlanta.

Messages would pop up during events that could cause road closures and detours, including ice storms and flash flooding. For the Transportation Department, it is one way to guard against a repeat of last January's ice storms, which slowed the Atlanta region to a crawl for several days and called the agency's planning into question.

For the billboard industry, which has a strong lobbying presence at the state Capitol, it's a chance to be linked to a public service. The industry already has agreements to disseminate messages from the Georgia Emergency Management Agency and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.

"We have so many digital billboards across the state for them to utilize," said Conner Poe, executive director of the Outdoor Advertising Association of Georgia, which represents about 90 percent of the billboards in Georgia. "We can reach more people."

There are no financial incentives or payments connected to the agreement, Poe said.

Opponents of digital billboards say they distract drivers by pulling their eyes off the road. Poe called those fears ill-founded. "There's been no evidence in Georgia or anywhere to prove that digital billboards have any impact on the safety of the roads," he said. "We think this is the best way to reach people."

The Federal Highway Administration is looking into the safety of electronic billboards and plans to release a major study next year.

The agreement is expected to go into effect on or around Jan. 1, Poe said. There are more than 120 electronic billboards in the Atlanta metro area. The Transportation Department will be able to pinpoint where the messages should be sent.

"One of our goals this winter is to broaden our efforts to share weather and driving conditions information with the public," said GDOT spokesman David Spear. "The development and growing use of digital billboards make them a perfect supplement to our own changeable message signs."

Many owners of electronic billboards reserve time for emergency messages. In the past four years, about 250 alerts from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation have run on electronic billboards, Poe said.

"We'll have standard verbiage for detours and road outages," he said. "We'll work closely with the department to make sure the messages are clear and concise. The fewer words, the better."