Statewide, Michigan, United States
Costs and Benefits of MDOT Intelligent Transportation Systems Deployments
Summary Information
The Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT)’s strategic plan for Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) revolves around attaining and demonstrating key mobility, safety, productivity, energy and environment, and customer satisfaction benefits at a reasonable and sustainable level of investment. The research team was tasked with evaluating the return on investment of the newest major ITS construction projects, which have introduced a large number of new applications and devices. The evaluation was based on data from the different traffic operations centers (TOCs), surveying the public, and analysis with statistical modeling, microsimulation, and a tiered cost-benefit analysis.
Methodology
The study team analyzed the safety impact of ITS devices on crashes by developing a negative binomial model. The analyses looked at segments with DMS or other ITS devices. The crash reductions reported are for segments with that technology present. They considered DMS as one category and CCTV and vehicle detectors (MVDS) as another.
Findings
The analysis indicated that one DMS is likely to reduce 16.6 percent of crashes while other ITS devices reduce crashes by 1.9 percent. The following table shows the crash reduction by each of the TOCs:
 |
Observed Crashes
|
Reductions by DMS
|
Reductions by CCTV and MVDS
|
Total Reduction
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southeast Michigan TOC |
5,559
|
556
|
211
|
767
|
| Western Michigan TOC |
2,543
|
155
|
31
|
286
|
| Statewide TOC |
1,508
|
116
|
30
|
146
|
| TOTAL |
9,610
|
827
|
372
|
1,199
|
Total crash reduction savings from these MDOT ITS deployments are estimated by the study team at $20 million.
