Some vehicles already on the road can keep a driver in the center of a lane or automatically brake if traffic slows up ahead. But that’s just the beginning for vehicle automation. And smart roadways have yet to be perfected.
Instead of test-driving new technology for automated vehicles just on freeways, it could be tested in a real-world laboratory — where commuters spill off the Selmon Expressway and onto Meridian Avenue, then Kennedy Boulevard. Public buses and local commuters could also be in on the cutting-edge research that would develop systems for those vehicles to communicate with the roads on which they travel.
The Tampa-Hillsborough Expressway Authority has applied for a Federal Highway Administration grant to design such a state-of-the-art roadway system. While testing communication technology for traffic signals using local drivers and buses, automated vehicle manufacturers could be using the infrastructure system to test electronics for their newfangled cars.
The future is that communication between vehicles and roads, said Joseph Waggoner, executive director of THEA. It will make driving safer and more efficient, he said.
The expressway authority should know by September if it will receive one of the five grants for $6 million to $12 million. The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Intelligent Transportation System Joint Program Office will select the winners.
The first phase would be to design the infrastructure. The second phase would be to build it and test it to prove it works. That would be an 80-20 grant, with the DOT paying 80 percent and THEA paying 20 percent. The third phase, also an 80-20 match, would be to maintain and operate the system for 18 months, after which time THEA would own the system.
“If we are successful, Tampa will be one of a handful of cities on the cutting edge of this type of technology,” Waggoner said.
Authority officials are banking on the idea that the DOT will like the mix of roadways and obstacles this area brings to the program, Waggoner said. “We have the expressway, but at one end we have Meridian Avenue and at the other end the Brandon Parkway — a mile on each end with pedestrian crossings, bikes, paths, traffic signals and transit.” The many other streets in the downtown business district also would be pulled into the project. “We can offer them real roads with real conditions,” he said.
The competition will be stiff between agencies all over the country, said Bob Frey, planning director for THEA. “But USDOT wants the connectivity between those vehicles and the roads. Autonomous vehicles will have to be able to communicate with the infrastructure,” something the THEA grant proposal offers.
“It is all focused on when you come off of a limited-access highway and transition into the central business district, how well will this technology work,” Frey said. “Meridian Avenue would be our focal point.”
Florida Sen. Jeff Brandes, R-St. Petersburg, got the idea rolling with successful legislation he sponsored in 2011 that allows automated-vehicle testing in Florida, Waggoner said. THEA staff courted Audi and persuaded the company to use the Selmon as a “test bed” for its automated vehicles, which it did in July.
This grant would allow for a huge next step for this area, Frey said.
“We could see what works, what doesn’t work and what didn’t work like we thought it would,” he said.
Naysayers complain there won’t be enough automated vehicles to support such a high-tech infrastructure for many years, Waggoner said, so why even bother testing such technology. But this is transportation planning, and that must be considered decades in advance, he said. Already, Waggoner said, the Hillsborough County Planning Commission and the Metropolitan Planning Organization are scoping out land-use and transportation issues through 2040.
“Now is the time to be looking at this, too” he said. “It might take 15 years to get enough cars in the mix to take full advantage of a system like this, but in the meantime, we will be able to take advantage of the safety issues.”
A more high-tech automated roadway system could save drivers and pedestrian lives, he said. “Safety and service to customers and cost savings is the payoff,” he said. “And if we can figure out how to use the lanes we have more efficiently, we might not need to build so many more in the future.”
Tampa, the Hillsborough Area Regional Transit Authority and the University of South Florida’s Center for Urban Transportation Research would be partners in the project, Frey said. Other local agencies may also get involved, he said, but those partnerships have not been finalized.
HART CEO Katharine Eagan is excited about the grant project because it would include “transit signal priority” at 10 intersections in downtown Tampa. Bus drivers could control signals, giving them an extra 10 to 15 seconds to get through a green light, which would make the Metro Rapid bus system more successful, she said.
“Anything that improves travel for one entity improves it for everybody,” Eagan said.
If THEA gets the grant, USF’s transportation research center would evaluate the project as it progresses, Frey said.
yhammett@tampatrib.com
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