FDOT coordinates with THEA on TAMPA connected vehicle pilot

Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) District 7 will provide over 40 video traffic detectors at 12 intersections to allow improved traffic signals to operate at Tampa’s Connected Vehicle Pilot. The project, launched by the Tampa-Hillsborough Expressway Authority (THEA), plans to use vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) communication to reduce travel times and make traffic flow smoother and safer in the region’s commercial business district (CBD).
December 13, 2017 Read time: 2 mins
4503 Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) District 7 will provide over 40 video traffic detectors at 12 intersections to allow improved traffic signals to operate at Tampa’s Connected Vehicle Pilot. The project, launched by the Tampa-Hillsborough Expressway Authority (THEA), plans to use vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) communication to reduce travel times and make traffic flow smoother and safer in the region’s commercial business district (CBD).


The pilot is partly funded by THEA and the U.S. Department of Transportation. It involves installing radios and computers in over 1,600 vehicles including private cars, buses, and streetcars and in over 40 fixed locations at downtown intersections to enable ultra-fast vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and V2I communication. In addition, over 500 area residents will be supplied with cell-phone applications to alert equipped nearby vehicles when pedestrians are crossing a street.

During the design phase, THEA’s project engineers worked with the University of Arizona who learned that signal control optimization can reach its full potential only when over 90% of the vehicles approaching the intersection have known location and speeds. The number of vehicles instrumented for V2I communication as part of the pilot would provide a far smaller percentage of vehicle coverage. A method of obtaining information on all vehicles approaching the instrumented intersections was needed.

After considering several technologies, FDOT paid for the procurement and installation of the detectors along Florida Avenue and Nebraska Avenue which is also part of the upcoming Managed Lanes Tampa Bay Express project. HNTB will provide the design to integrate them with the rest of the connected vehicle pilot operation under its existing general engineering contract. THEA will supply 10 Bluetooth detectors to determine travel time between points on these streets and along Meridian Avenue. These technologies will not identify or retain any information about individual drivers or vehicles.

Location Based Systems

Related Content

  • September 5, 2018
    Connected Signals improves driver safety in Florida
    Connected Signals is providing drivers in Gainesville, Florida, with real-time predictive traffic information to let them know when traffic lights are going to change. The company says sharing the data with vehicles and drivers can improve fuel efficiency by 8-15% and reduce red-light crashes by 25%. Aggregated real-time signal information, fed through predictive algorithms, is sent to Gainesville drivers via the company’s Enlighten mobile app. The app will eventually be integrated with connected car dis
    Read More
  • August 22, 2012
    US DoT launches largest-ever road test of connected vehicle crash avoidance technology
    Nearly 3,000 cars, trucks and buses equipped with connected Wi-Fi technology to enable vehicles and infrastructure to ‘talk’ to each other in real time to help avoid crashes and improve traffic flow, began traversing Ann Arbor's streets yesterday as part of a year-long safety pilot project by the US Department of Transportation. Ray LaHood, US Transportation Secretary, joined elected officials and industry and community leaders on the University of Michigan campus to launch the second phase of the Safety Pi
    Read More
  • June 17, 2016
    Less travel aggravation to blunt Aggieland fans’ motivation
    Returning travel times to normal within two hours of the end of a major football game was the challenge facing College Station, Adam Lyons explains how this was achieved. College Station, TX, also known as ‘Aggieland’, is located right in the middle of the Dallas/Fort Worth, San Antonio and Houston triangle making the city accessible to over 14 million Texans within less than a four-hour drive. One of the biggest draws to this area is Texas A&M University (TAMU) and the Aggie football games in the fall, mea
    Read More
  • December 21, 2017
    Communications hold key to expanding ITS wireless network expansion
    Wireless transmission of data and control information is making smarter traffic management easier and cheaper to install. It has long been known that connectivity is the key to improving traffic management and many cost-benefit studies prove that investment in new technology can be justified in terms of reduced congestion, shorter travel times, improved safety and air quality. However, many authorities’ cap-ex budgets only cover urgent matters, not improvements, making it difficult, if not impossible to
    Read More

Highlighted Content