Weary travelers wondering about road conditions last week had a tough time checking the state’s 511 website. Kelly Langer is the system operations chief in charge of the Wisconsin Department of Transportation’s winter travel site. She says the combination of a major winter storm and a holiday travel day led to major demand on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. “We had over 2,000 simultaneous hits on the site, and it ended up giving many people an error message,” says Langer, adding that people who refreshed their browser were able to access it. Langer says additional data lines will allow the site to handle more Internet traffic. She says that should prevent similar problems in the future.
Rick Schuh, WHBY