North Carolina DoT wins top award for hurricane response

North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDoT) has won a major award for its work responding to Hurricane Florence last year. The organisation was the overall trophy winner – up against 60 other submissions - at the first annual Transportation Systems Management and Operations (TSMO) Awards, run by the US National Operations Center of Excellence (NOCoE). The gong was presented to Jennifer Portanova, NCDoT state systems operations engineer, at the 2019 Transportation Research Board annual meeting
January 16, 2019 Read time: 2 mins

4775 North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDoT) has won a major award for its work responding to Hurricane Florence last year.

The organisation was the overall trophy winner – up against 60 other submissions - at the first annual Transportation Systems Management and Operations (TSMO) Awards, run by the US National Operations Center of Excellence (NOCoE).

The gong was presented to Jennifer Portanova, NCDoT state systems operations engineer, at the 2019 856 Transportation Research Board annual meeting in Washington, DC this week.

Last September, more than a million people were safely evacuated in advance of the storm and NCDoT continued to keep the public informed of road closures and collapses as it swept through the US state.

“There’s no doubt, lives were saved because of the crucial work done by our colleagues at NCDoT,” says NOCoE managing director Patrick Son. “Their preparation and response were amazing, coordinating, moving and informing millions of people. This is a case where things could have gone horribly wrong and instead, the coalition of TSMO practitioners, traffic managers, first responders and partners had an incredibly positive outcome.”

He added that the quality of submissions “highlights the growing understanding and influence of TSMO as a saver of lives, time and money”.

As well as taking the top prize, NCDoT won the ‘Major incident or special event planning and response’ category. Other winners were:

• Improving your agency’s TSMO capabilities – ITS Heartland Chapter of ITS America and HDR - ITS Heartland’s TSMO University Educational Program

• Best TSMO project (creative solution) – Arizona Department of Transportation - US-60 Restripe Project

• Public Communications – Oregon Department of Transportation - @OregonTIMResponders

Air Quality & Weather Systems

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Sign language reduces human error says Clearview
    September 26, 2019
    Wrong-way warning systems and advanced queue detection can help to reduce human error. They can also cut road accidents – and therefore road deaths, says Clearview Intelligence Where were nearly 1,800 deaths on the UK’s roads in 2018 – an average of five people dying each day. The largest single cause of serious injury is crashes at junctions (accounting for 33% of incidents), while the largest single cause of death was run-off road crashes (30%) “With vehicles increasingly being designed with saf
    Read More
  • IBTTA announces 2017 International Toll Excellence Award Winners
    July 26, 2017
    The International Bridge, Tunnel and Turnpike Association (IBTTA) has announced its 2017 Toll Excellence Award Winners, recognising innovative strategies to help ease traffic flow, relieve congestion and increase safety for the global driving public. The awards are presented in seven categories and the 2017 winners are: • Indiana Toll Road Concession Company (Indiana) - Administration and Finance • State Road and Tollway Authority (Georgia) - Customer Service and Marketing Outreach • North Texas Tollway
    Read More
  • The rise of V2X: it’s time for ITS to put up the shields in cyberspace
    May 14, 2018
    Traffic management has largely been shielded from the sort of malicious hacking that is commonplace in other industries – but with billions of connected devices in the world it won’t stay that way, warn internet experts Keith Golden and Brandon Johnson. Traditionally isolated from networks and the internet over most of its history, the traffic management industry has largely been shielded from malicious hacking and system intrusion that have become commonplace in other industries. However, as the rate of
    Read More
  • Carrots are proving cost-effective in Netherlands
    October 3, 2018
    There are lessons to be learned from congestion avoidance schemes in the Netherlands. David Crawford welcomes some new thinking in road pricing. Highway operators worldwide are being urged to learn from Dutch experience in using financial carrots rather than sticks to encourage drivers to avoid contributing to congestion. A Netherlands/UK group makes a convincing cost/benefit case in a new global survey of road pricing technologies, economics and acceptability. Representing the Rijkswaterstaat section of
    Read More

Highlighted Content