Vanderbilt University and the Tennessee Department of Transportation (TDOT) have teamed up with transportation consulting firm Gresham Smith to transform a six-mile stretch of I-24 into the “smartest roadway in the world,” the university announced Sept. 2.
By tracking drivers and automated vehicles, the group hopes to create a better understanding of traffic, which will help the group figure out ways to reduce congestion and improve traffic concerns like safety and pollution.
Dan Work, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering, said the project, called I-24 MOTION, would use over 300 ultra-high definition cameras to capture vehicle behavior on the stretch of roadway.
“We want to measure how drivers and automated vehicles interact on the road, separately and together,” Work, also a 2021 Chancellor Faculty Fellow, said. “This research will help make the world’s roadways smarter and safer, with the initial research conducted right here in Tennessee. Beyond the thrill of participating in this never-before-attempted project, we are confident that this work will attract the attention of automakers and contribute to the region’s economy.”
Video from those cameras would then be transmitted over a fiber-optic network and processed through artificial intelligence to measure vehicle positions at over 30 measurements per second.
“This groundbreaking understanding of traffic is more important than ever due to the increasing automation capability of individual vehicles, which are beginning to influence traffic flow through their interactions with conventional vehicles,” Brad Freeze, director of TDOT’s Traffic Operations Division, said in a release. “By unlocking a new understanding of how these vehicles influence traffic, vehicle and infrastructure design can be optimized to reduce traffic concerns in the future to improve safety, air quality, and fuel efficiency.”
Camera installation began this summer and is expected to be completed and operational by the summer of 2022. TDOT will install congestion management technologies along this same section of the interstate as part of the I-24 SMART Corridor project.