USDOT's Wyoming Connected Vehicle Pilot Project Assessed the Impacts of Connected Vehicle Technology on Weather-related Incidents and Road Closures on I-80.
Statewide, Wyoming, United States
Connected Vehicle Pilot Final System Performance Measurement and Evaluation – WYDOT CV Pilot
Summary Information
The Wyoming CV Pilot focused on the efficient and safe movement of freight through Wyoming's 402 miles of I-80, which serves as a major corridor for east-west freight movement in the United States. Led by the Wyoming Department of Transportation (WYDOT), the Wyoming CV Pilot site particularly focused on the needs of commercial vehicle operators in the State of Wyoming and aimed to reduce the number adverse weather-related incidents (including secondary incidents) in the corridor to improve safety and reduce incident-related delays. To accomplish these goals, approximately 320 heavy duty commercial trucks, highway patrol vehicles, and snowplows were retrofitted with onboard units equipped with Dedicated Short-Range Communications (DSRC) that allowed vehicles to receive and broadcast CV messages. A tablet-based Human-Machine Interface (HMI) installed in the vehicles communicated information to drivers such as inclement weather warnings and advisories, recommended speeds, road closure notifications, parking/services information for trucks, vehicle restrictions, etc. Mobile weather sensors installed onto WYDOT patrol vehicles and snowplows also allowed these vehicles to transmit weather data to WYDOT’s Traffic Management Center (TMC), further improving the ability to detect and forecast road weather and pavement conditions.
METHODOLOGY
The study utilized a “Before-After” approach to quantitatively compare corridor data under baseline conditions (collected from December 2016 - November 2017) with data collected during the Wyoming CV Pilot demonstration (from January 2021 - April 2022). The complete dataset consisted of data collected and/or produced by WYDOT (e.g., road reports, crash, and weather) and CV system generated data (e.g., data produced by OBUs, RSUs and back office systems).
Collected data was assessed against 17 performance measures that were focused on improvements to efficiency, safety, and mobility and represent the primary activities and outcomes of the Wyoming CV Pilot system, including data collection, information dissemination, alerts and advisories shared between vehicles and roadside, improved speed adherence and reduced crash rates.
FINDINGS
Road Condition Reporting
- The number of road condition reports increased from 4.3 to 16.88 (+293 percent).
- The coverage of road condition reports expanded from 5 sections to 6.4 sections (+20 percent)
- The refresh time of road condition reports reduced from 3.9 hours to 3.2 hours (-13.5 percent)
Driver Behavior/Safety
- The percentage of vehicles traveling +/- 10mph within the speed limit was shown to increase from 58.9 percent to 66.4 percent (+7.5 percent), across all weather conditions.
- Speed data distribution indicates that CVs slightly favors speed below the posted speed with 44 percent of the observations occurring in speeds below the limit, compared to 38 percent of the Non-CVs.
- Sixty (60) percent of drivers either reduced their speed or stopped after receiving a High Wind Alert.
- Fifty-six (56) percent of drivers either reduced their speed or exited after receiving a Work Zone Alert.
- Fifty (50) percent of drivers reduced their speed after receiving a Winter Storm Alert.
- No crashes involving a connected vehicle were reported to WYDOT during the period from December 2020 through February 2022.
