Abstract: An apparatus for determining a road pavement surface condition over a wide area has a road noise sensor (12). A temporal frequency analyzer (18) converts a road noise signal from the road noise sensor (12) to a temporal frequency signal. A processing circuit (20) receives the temporal frequency signal from the temporal frequency analyzer (18) and analyzes the temporal frequency signal to determine the road pavement surface condition.

Abstract: An electronic nervous system (10) for a roadway (12), has a plurality of nodes (14). The plurality of nodes (14) parallel the roadway and are connected by an information link (20). A plurality of sensors (16) are coupled to the plurality of nodes (14) and the output of the sensors (16) are processed by the nodes to form symbolic patterns (18). The symbolic patterns (20) travel along the information link (20). By comparing symbolic patterns (18) the state of the roadway (12) can be determined. The state can include a metric that measures how well traffic is flowing as well as determines transit times between nodes. A plurality of traffic signals (34) are coupled to the nodes (14) and are adjusted based on the symbolic patterns (18). A subset of the plurality of nodes (14) are coupled to a node supervisor (36).