Second phase of USDOT’s Connected Vehicle Pilot Program begins

vehicle-to-vehicle-communicationThe U.S. Department of Transportation’s Intelligent Transportation Systems Joint Program Office (ITS JPO) has announced that the second phase of the Connected Vehicle (CV) Pilot Deployment Program is set to begin its 20-month cycle.

The Connected Vehicle Pilot Deployment program “seeks to combine connected vehicle and mobile device technologies in innovative and cost-effective ways” with the aim of improving mobility transportation, system productivity, safety and environmental impact.

Three pilot sites, including Wyoming, Tampa, and New York City, were selected to conduct three phases of operation. These include concept development, design/build/test and operations.

Details on the three pilot sites, from the ITS JPO, are included below.

ICF/Wyoming

The primary objective for the CV Pilot ICF/Wyoming pilot deployment is to reduce the number of weather related incidents (including secondary incidents) in the corridor in order to improve safety and reduce incident-related delays. This deployment will utilize connected vehicle technology to improve and monitor performance on Interstate 80 (I-80), which is a freight-intensive corridor with a daily volume of 11,000 to 16,000 vehicles, many of which are heavy-duty trucks (30 percent to 55 percent).

The I-80 corridor is about 402 miles long and reaches its maximum elevation of 8,640 feet above sea level at Sherman Summit, near Buford. As a result of the high elevation, the corridor is particularly subject to winter weather events, most commonly between the months of October and May. Weather events typical to the corridor are ice and snow covered road surfaces, poor visibility, and high wind events (i.e., wind speeds exceeding 30 mph and wind gusts exceeding 40 mph) that often lead to truck blow-overs. Between 2002 and 2012, more than 3,470 high-wind crashes were observed.

This Pilot will develop applications that use vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) and vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) connectivity to support a flexible range of services that improves safety and mobility. Information from these applications will be made available directly to the equipped fleets or through data connections to fleet management centers, that will then communicate it to their trucks using their own systems. The applications to be deployed include Road Weather Advisories and Warnings for Motorists and Freight Carriers, Weather-Responsive Variable Speed Limit System, Freight-Specific Dynamic Travel Planning, Spot Weather Impact Warning, Situational Awareness, and others as determined by the user needs of truck drivers, fleet managers in the corridor.

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Wyoming DOT will conduct the pilot in three phases as directed by the federal contract. In the first phase which elaborates the deployment concepts, Wyoming DOT will be supported by a multidisciplinary team including ICF International, University of Wyoming, National Center for Atmospheric Research, Trihydro, University of Maryland – Center for Advanced Transportation Technologies, and McFarland Management. Additional partners and stakeholders will be engaged in the development and deployment phases of the pilot.

New York City (NYC)

The primary objective of the CV Pilot NYC pilot deployment site is to improve the safety of travelers and pedestrians in New York City through connected vehicle technologies. This objective of the CV Pilot NYC is directly aligned with the New York City’s Vision Zero initiative, which seeks to reduce pedestrian fatalities and make the City’s streets safer for travelers in all modes of transportation.

This NYC site provides an ideal opportunity to evaluate the CV technology and applications in tightly-spaced intersections typical in a dense urban transportation system. Connected vehicle technologies and associated applications will be deployed along heavily traveled high accident rate arterials in Manhattan and Brooklyn to provide a comparative sample that can be used to verify benefits against those for locations that are not instrumented.

The NYC pilot deployment will feature the installation and utilization of V2V technology in up to 10,000 city-owned and other fleet vehicles. Traffic signals in the high-priority corridors in Manhattan and Brooklyn will be upgraded with V2I communications capabilities. Applications to be deployed include Red Light Violation Warning, Pedestrian in Signalized Crosswalk Warning, Vehicle Turning Right in Front, Mobile Accessible Pedestrian Signal System (PED-SIG), and Freight-Specific Dynamic Travel Demand and Performance, to help reduce congestion and control speeds, enhance intersection and pedestrian safety, and optimize truck freight operations. The New York City Department of Transportation leads this deployment effort.

Tampa (THEA)

This pilot deployment effort, headed by the Tampa-Hillsborough Expressway Authority (THEA), will deploy a variety of connected vehicle technologies on and within the vicinity of the Lee Roy Selmon Expressway reversible express lanes in downtown Tampa. In addition to the Expressway, the deployment area contains bus and trolley services, high pedestrian densities, special event trip generators and highly variable traffic demand over the course of a typical day.

These diverse travel demand environments in a single concentrated deployment area create a wide variety of dynamic traffic conditions. Drivers within the deployment area experience significant delays (especially on the Selmon Expressway) during the morning peak hour resulting in, and often caused by, a correspondingly large number of rear-end crashes and red light running collisions. The deployment area also experiences transit signal delays, pedestrian conflicts, red light running and signal coordination issues.

Hence, the primary objective of this deployment is to alleviate congestion on the roadway during morning commuting hours. In addition, the project team will deploy a variety of V2V and V2I safety, mobility, and agency data applications to create reinforcing benefits for motorists, pedestrians, and transit operation. Some of the applications to be deployed include Curve Speed Warning, Intelligent Traffic Signal System, Intersection Movement Assist, Mobile Accessible Pedestrian Signal, and Transit Signal Priority.