Tampa Hillsborough Expressway Authority’s $27M Connected Vehicle Pilot Concludes

September 30th, 2022, marked the end of a seven-year initiative by the Tampa Hillsborough Expressway Authority (THEA) with $27 million in funding from USDOT, FDOT, and THEA. The Pilot began in 2015 when the agency began the innovative project to implement connected vehicle (CV) technology in real-life scenarios using the Selmon Expressway as a living lab for testing. 

As part of the Pilot, a full-scale operation of CV devices also took place in downtown Tampa, culminating in a collaboration between Honda, Hyundai America Technical Center, Inc, and Toyota Motor North America. This industry-wide collaboration was Phase 4 of the Pilot and is among the first of its kind, where auto manufacturers joined in deploying vehicles with CV technology to provide the next evolution of delivering safer transportation.

Thanks to THEA’s efforts as an early adopter, Tampa was one of the first cities in the nation to deploy CV technology on actual city streets, fitting transportation infrastructure, transit vehicles, and over 1,100 volunteer drivers with the ability to receive safety alerts. The THEA CV Pilot team has equipped 1,100 Selmon Expressway commuter vehicles, 10 HART buses, and 8 streetcars with wireless communication devices to talk to each other and to the 48 roadside signal units placed in strategic downtown Tampa study locations. 

The Pilot produced a massive amount of real-time data that can now be used to create rules and regulations in the world of Automated, Connected, Electric, and Shared (ACES) technology which will deliver safer and more efficient driving conditions in the future. For example, data demonstrated that our Pilot prevented 21 potential pedestrian crashes, provided 19 red light violation warnings, avoided 17 potential vehicle collisions, alerted 14 wrong-way drivers, and issued over 20,000 safety advisories.

With the CV Pilot ending, THEA will continue its efforts in advancing the Selmon Expressway and implementing intelligent transportation systems to improve safety and mobility. The Pilot’s collected data will also be utilized to leverage existing technology on the I-4 Frame in partnership with the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) in a $43 million program budgeted over the next six years. 

For more information about the THEA CV Pilot, visit the website https://theacvpilot.com/.