Project of the year win for TransCore Silicon Valley project

Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority’s (VTA) State Route (SR) 237 Express Lanes, for which TransCore serves as lead integrator, received the 2012 Transportation Project of the Year Award from the San Francisco Bay Area Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE). VTA is implementing the Silicon Valley Express Lanes Program to provide congestion relief in one of its major Bay Area commuter corridors. As part of the program, the SR 237, US 101, SR 85 and parts of I-680 corridor will convert the existin
February 27, 2013 Read time: 2 mins
1791 Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority’s (VTA) State Route (SR) 237 Express Lanes, for which 139 Transcore serves as lead integrator, received the 2012 Transportation Project of the Year Award from the San Francisco Bay Area 5667 Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE).

VTA is implementing the Silicon Valley Express Lanes Program to provide congestion relief in one of its major Bay Area commuter corridors. As part of the program, the SR 237, US 101, SR 85 and parts of I-680 corridor will convert the existing HOV lanes to express lanes.

Since the opening of the 237 Express Lanes, commuters are saving between five and twenty minutes compared to those driving in the general purpose lanes during peak commute periods. The travel time for commuters in the general purpose lanes has also improved by upwards of seven minutes.

The project received top honours for being a key benefit to the public by providing commuters with an additional travel option, making better use of the existing roadway and improving operations in the corridor.

Converting high occupancy vehicle (HOV) to high occupancy toll (HOT) or express lanes has become a popular approach to better utilise capacity on existing roadways in major urban areas across the country. The project demonstrates the ability to use roadway pricing as an effective travel demand management tool by controlling the demand through dynamic pricing, which changes the toll rate as the level of congestion changes. Today, over 10,000 solo drivers a week are choosing to use the express lanes for travel time reliability.

“The results from the SR237 Express Lanes demonstrate the benefits provided to the traveling public from systems of this nature,” said Michael Mauritz, TransCore managing director for the Western Region and project manager. “TransCore was honored by the opportunity to lead the design and deployment of this program and is pleased VTA earned this deserved recognition.”

This project utilises TransCore’s unique combination of traffic management and toll systems expertise. The company’s work as system integrator included the development of the system software that includes the dynamic pricing algorithm as well as design and installation of AVI equipment, dynamic message signs, traffic monitoring detectors and CCTV cameras.
Parking & Access Control Detection, Monitoring & Machine Vision Urban Traffic Control Charging, Tolling & RUC

Related Content

  • Studies show HOV conversion to HOT improves transit
    February 4, 2016
    According to a December 2015 report from American Association of State Highway and Transportation officials, converting from high occupancy vehicle (HOV) to Express Lanes (HOT) benefits transit. Across the US, transit ridership and speeds increase when HOV goes HOT. Data from major cities that converted to Express Lanes show positive results, such as Miami, where 53 per cent of passengers said tolling affected their decision to use transit. Average bus travel increased from 18 to 55 mph on the I-95 E
    Read More
  • WSP/Parsons Brinckerhoff to manage California HOV project
    October 28, 2016
    The Contra Costa Transportation Authority in California, US, has awarded a contract to WSP/Parsons Brinckerhoff for construction management services for the completion of the I-680 HOV (high-occupancy vehicle) Express Lanes project. The Authority, in cooperation with the California Department of Transportation, Metropolitan Transportation Commission, and the Federal Highway Administration, seeks to improve traffic operations and relieve congestion with the construction of HOV express lanes on southbound
    Read More
  • TransCore and Sensys Networks partner on real time travel data
    June 18, 2013
    TransCore, provider of intelligent transportation system (ITS) products and services to fifty US state departments of transportation, and California-based Sensys Networks are to integrate the Sensys arterial travel time system into TransCore’s TransSuite advanced traffic management system, used by more than forty state and local governments. The Sensys Networks arterial travel time system employs signature re-identification technology to measure and report real-time travel data along a city corridor. This i
    Read More
  • Xerox counts on machine vision for high occupancy enforcement
    October 29, 2014
    Machine vision techniques can provide solutions to some of the traffic planners most enduring problems With a high proportion of cars being occupied by the driver alone, one of the easiest, most environmentally friendly and cheapest methods of reducing congestion is to encourage more people to travel in each vehicle. So to persuade people to share rides, high occupancy lanes were devised to prioritise vehicles with (typically) three of more people on board and in some areas these vehicles are exempt from
    Read More

Highlighted Content