Skip to main content

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.

Related Content

  • Affordable and versatile traffic data
    January 20, 2012
    Houston TranStar, which has been collecting travel time and segment speed data using vehicle probe data since 1995, has an extensive coverage area that envelops most local commuters' daily freeway routes. However, expanding the existing Automated Vehicle Identification (AVI) system would be cost-prohibitive except for high-volume freeways. The partners of the Houston TranStar consortium needed a new method to measure speeds and travel times on arterial roadway systems and rural freeways. Instead of using co
  • Hackathon success at ITS World Congress
    October 10, 2016
    As the 2016 ITS World Congress was opening its doors, hacking trio Hong Yew, Ram Kanagaratnam and Kyle Mantesso of team Geolicious were collecting the AU$10,000 first prize in the ITS 2016 Mastercard Smart Cities Hackathon. the first ITS Smart City Hack was designed to encourage collaboration and innovative thinking and was the largest event of its kind in Australia. Total prize money of AU$20,000 enticed 16 teams of Australia’s most talented developers, designers and entrepreneurs to enter the two-day e
  • NJDOT traffic signal coordination project begins
    April 8, 2013
    The New Jersey Department of Transportation (NJDOT) has started work on a much-needed congestion relief project, using technology to improve traffic flow along a thirteen mile stretch of Route 22 in Somerset and Union counties. The US$7.77 million project will improve mobility along the entire corridor through the creation of an integrated system interconnecting eighteen traffic signals into one controlled traffic signal system (CTSS). This includes the complete replacement of the existing traffic signal sy
  • New York's award-winning traffic control system
    February 28, 2013
    A comprehensive ITS strategy in New York built on a system of key building blocks has been crowned with an IRF award for the city’s Midtown in Motion adaptive control system. Jon Masters reviews New York’s ITS modernisation plan as the city looks to the next phase of expansion. In January this year the International Road Federation (IRF) presented TransCore and the New York City Department of Transportation (NYCDOT) with the IRF Global Road Achievement Award. This was for deployment of New York’s Midtown in