Kentucky Acquires New Transportation Operations Center

Kentucky's Transportation Cabinet recently acquired a new building with a new center called Transportation Operations Center (TOC). The new center is a state-of-the-art facility and a great example of how Kentucky is using technology to increase safety and efficiency.

The TOC was developed to help coordinate operations and incident management activities on Kentucky's highway system, and create an integrated program that links traffic operations centers, emergency response agencies and transit agencies by real-time communications. "We are pleased to have such a unique space designed specifically for an operations center. Safety is a high priority for us in the cabinet and through the use of technology, we are now able to manage incidents on the highways more effectively and help motorists arrive safely at their destination," explained Transportation Cabinet Secretary Clay Bailey.

Some of TOC's responsibilities include providing centralized dispatching for all Kentucky vehicle enforcement officers, coordinating all emergency response and recovery efforts for 12 transportation districts, being a liaison to and serving as a backup for the state Emergency Operations Center, monitoring current weather conditions and forecasting weather.

One feature of the new Transportation Cabinet building is the auditorium. It features the latest multimedia equipment and can be linked to the TOC for training purposes or to serve as an additional information center in an emergency.

Transportation Cabinet officials see the role of the new TOC expanding in the future to include monitoring 3,000 state-owned stop lights for outages or problems; having an e-mail and text-messaging subscription service that can notify subscribers of roadway emergencies, conditions and re-routes; and using the consolidation the operation center provides to better analyze and strategize data with other statewide systems.