Here’s how to use the COTrip app to avoid road work and congestion on Colorado roads this summer

In addition to navigation apps like Google Maps or Waze, travelers driving in Colorado — whether residents or visitors — have another tool at their disposal: COTrip.org or the COTrip Planner App.

Colorado Department of Transportation spokesperson Stacia Sellers said that COTrip.org and the CoTrip Planner App, which is available on Apple and Android devices, can help drivers avoid roadwork and road closures this summer.

“COTrip is our go-to resource for the public to see the latest road closures, construction activities and road conditions,” Sellers said. “It’s really just to keep motorists informed before they head out on the roadway.”

Transportation officials at CDOT’s three traffic operation centers — located in Golden, at the Hanging Lake Tunnel and in Pueblo — are constantly updating COTrip with the latest road conditions and closures, Sellers said.

Sellers recently sat down with the Summit Daily News to discuss how to use the COTrip app and highlight some of its lesser-known features, including the ability to save favorite routes and customize alerts about road closures and incidents.

“Our traffic operations centers are our eyes and ears on the roadway,” Sellers said. “So, they usually know about an incident before the traveling public. They can input that (into COTrip) so that as you’re driving, you can see this real-time closure information.”

COTrip basics

Anyone who visits COTrip.org will be greeted with a homepage offering a search function as well as options to “Find a Roadway” or a drop-down menu suggesting “popular routes.” Clicking the “Find a Roadway” option will pull up a map of Colorado’s roads.

On the right-hand side of the screen, a “layers” box will allow users to choose what is shown on the map. In the summer, the map will default to show ongoing construction projects, express lanes, rest areas and welcome centers, traffic incidents and weather alerts. On the mobile app, the “layers” button is located in the bottom right-hand corner.

“This is going to be the most reliable source of information for motorists before they head out,” Seller said, suggesting that drivers use COTrip to find out whether there is road work or other incidents on their route.

Users can check or uncheck options in the “layers” box to add or remove which alerts appear on the map. For example, by checking the “future construction” option, the map will be populated with icons indicating where future construction projects are planned. Users can then click on individual icons on the map to find out more information about a particular alert.

One layer option that drivers may find helpful, especially when roadways are busy, is the “traffic speeds” layer, which color codes the roadways based on how quickly traffic is flowing, with green indicating fast-flowing traffic and red indicating standstill traffic.

For those road tripping in Colorado, the “Scenic Byways” layer highlights some of the state’s most scenic roadways and the “Rest Areas” layer can help travelers locate good places to stop for a break.

Another popular feature is the “Cameras” layer, which shows all of CDOT’s traffic cameras on roadways across the state. Users can click on an individual camera icon on the map to see the most recent footage from that camera, which can give drivers a sense of the conditions and amount of traffic on a particular roadway.

On COTrip.org, a “List View” option also allows users to receive alerts in a list, rather than on the map, with options to filter the results by particular roadways or regions.

To keep up-to-date with alerts while driving, users can click the speaker icon in the top right-hand corner of the COTrip Planner App. This will enable voice announcements of traffic reports as the driver approaches them, allowing the driver to keep up with alerts while also complying with the state’s hands-free law that bans drivers from holding electronic devices.

Searching in COTrip

Users can also use the search function on COTrip to find out information about a roadway or to find a particular camera. As a user types in a search, a drop-down menu will appear with suggested search options.

For example, searching “Interstate 70” will highlight the I-70 corridor and allow users to explore the cameras along the route and alerts about closures or road construction.

By choosing the “Custom Route” search option, travelers can input a starting and ending address and COTrip will plot out the route between those two points, highlighting traffic incidents or roadwork along the way.

When a route is chosen, COTrip will estimate the expected current travel time and display Google’s estimate of how many minutes delay a driver could expect along the route.

My COTrip

By creating a “My COTrip” account, travelers can sign up to receive text and email alerts with the ability to save favorite routes and customize when they want to receive alerts for those roadways.

After logging in, users can click on “My COTrip” and navigate to “Edit Alerts” where they can choose how frequently they receive alerts, with options to receive “Critical” alerts, “Urgent” alerts or “Routine” alerts.

Users can also “favorite” routes they frequent for easy access and to receive alerts specific to that route. To save a route, a user simply has to search the route or choose a specific roadway, choose the layers they want to see and click the heart-shaped “favorite” button.

After clicking the “favorite” button, a window will pop up allowing the user to label the route with a custom name and choose whether they want to receive email or text alerts for the route. Users can also customize what time of days and what days of the week they would like to receive alerts. 

When favoriting a route, users can also set “travel time warnings” that will allow them to get an alert when the travel time exceeds a set amount of time. For example, a commuter traveling between Breckenridge and Denver could set the travel time warning for two hours, so they’ll be notified if the travel time along that route exceeds two hours.