The U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) announced Monday it is providing up to $42 million for next-generation technology for vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) communications to New York City, Wyoming and Tampa, Florida as part of the department’s Connected Vehicle Pilot deployment program.
“Today’s announcement is a big step forward for the future of how we move in this country, from our rural communities to our biggest cities,” Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said at an announcement at the New York City Joint Management Traffic Center. “It has been a core mission of the department to support promising new technologies, and through these types of smart investments we are opening the door to a safer and cleaner network and expanding how future generations travel.”
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New York City plans to use its $20 million grant to install V2V capabilities in up to 10,000 city-owned vehicles and V2I technology in the Midtown area. V2I capabilities will be added to traffic signals on avenues between 14th Street and 66th Street in Manhattan. Brooklyn also will have updates throughout the borough. Roadside units on FDR Drive between 50th Street and 90th street also will have connected vehicle capabilities added.
“I am honored that USDOT chose New York City to participate in this cutting edge connected vehicle pilot program,” NYC Department of Transportation Commissioner Polly Trottenberg said. “We look forward to testing this exciting safety technology on some of the toughest streets in the world.”
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Wyoming will focus efforts on the “efficient and safe movement” of freight on the Interstate 80 corridor, where between 11,000 and 16,000 vehicles travel daily. The Wyoming Department of Transportation will using V2V and V2I to collect and disseminate the data it collects to vehicles not equipment with the technology.
Tampa will receive $17 million and plans to work on ways of providing “connected technology” being put into vehicles to pedestrians’ smartphones to. This is an effort to protect pedestrians and to solve “peak rush hour congestion” in the downtown area.
The USDOT Intelligent Transportation Systems Joint Program Office has successfully tested technologies in close to 3,000 vehicles in the Ann Arbor, Michigan area. “USDOT’s efforts proved that connected vehicle technology indeed works in the real world and in a variety of vehicle types including cars, trucks, transit vehicles, motorcycles and even bicycles,” the department says.