Having completed the first phase of its Connected Vehicle Pilot Deployment Program earlier this year, the US Department of Transportation (USDOT) has now launched the second phase, which will see the technologies deployed and tested at the three pilot sites.
USDOT has awarded three cooperative agreements, collectively worth more than US$45m to initiate the design/build/test phase of the CV Pilot Deployment Program at the test sites in southern Wyoming, New York City, and Tampa. Managed by the USDOT’s Intelligent Transportation Systems Joint Program Office (ITS-JPO), the program is a national effort to deploy, test, and operationalize cutting-edge mobile and roadside technologies and enable multiple connected vehicle applications. These technologies and applications have been brought together in innovative ways to have an immediate impact – to save lives, improve personal mobility, enhance economic productivity, reduce environmental impacts, and transform public agency operations.
In the first phase of the effort, each site prepared a comprehensive deployment concept to ensure a rapid and efficient connected vehicle capability roll-out. Now, the three sites will embark on a 20-month phase of activity to design, build, and test the country’s most complex and extensive deployment of integrated wireless in-vehicle, mobile device, and roadside technologies.
The primary objective for the Wyoming CV Pilot Deployment is to reduce the number of weather related incidents on the I-80, which is a freight-intensive route with a daily volume of 11,000 to 16,000 vehicles, many of which are heavy-duty trucks. The corridor is about 402 miles (647km) long with a high elevation, making it particularly prone to winter weather events, including ice and snow covered road surfaces, poor visibility, and high winds that often lead to truck blow-overs. The pilot will develop applications using vehicle to infrastructure (V2I) and vehicle to vehicle (V2V) connectivity that will be made available directly to the equipped fleets, or through data connections to fleet management centers, which will then communicate it to their trucks using their own systems.
The primary objective of the New York City CV Pilot Deployment is to improve the safety of travelers and pedestrians through connected technologies. The site provides an ideal opportunity to evaluate CV technology and applications in tightly-spaced intersections typical in a dense urban transportation system. The technologies and associated applications will be deployed along heavily traveled high accident rate arterials in Manhattan and Brooklyn. The deployment will feature the installation of V2V technology in up to 10,000 city-owned and other fleet vehicles. Traffic signals in the high-priority corridors will be upgraded with V2I capabilities.
The Florida pilot, headed by the Tampa-Hillsborough Expressway Authority (THEA), will deploy a variety of CV technologies on and around the Lee Roy Selmon Expressway reversible express lanes in downtown Tampa. The deployment area also contains bus and trolley services, high pedestrian densities, special event trip generators, and highly variable traffic demand over the course of a typical day. The primary objective is to alleviate congestion on the roadway during morning commuting hours, using a variety of V2X safety, mobility, and agency data applications.
