Connected Vehicles (CV) are expected to significantly affect the driving environment by enhancing safety, mobility, and reliability. These vehicles are equipped with technologies that enable them to communicate with like vehicles and/or the infrastructure. Such capabilities provide information on the condition of traffic streams, the presence and behavior of other vehicles in the immediate environment, and enable drivers of such vehicles to make safer, better, and more reliable decisions. NCDOT is planning to apply CV technologies around North Carolina State University������������������s campus in Raleigh where multiple transportation modes are in service. This initiative aims to create a connected environment to measure the effect and impact of CV technology in increasing safety for pedestrians as well as improving the efficiency and mobility of the Wolfline bus system. The pilot will consist of deploying CV technology on the roadside and in the Wolfline bus fleet. Driver and pedestrian assist applications will be used to help both roadway users make safe and reliable decisions. High resolution data will also be collected for evaluation of the effects of pedestrian and transit priority as well as optimizing system performance. This research effort will encompass a before and after analysis of the NCDOT CV Deployment, a comprehensive data warehouse of the deployment, and a summary report containing lessons learned from the pilot deployment as well as recommendations for future CV Deployments in the state.

Managed freeways refer to roadways that incorporate intelligent transportation systems (ITS) and active traffic management (ATM) technologies, enabling transportation managers to monitor, communicate, and manage both the traffic and the infrastructure in and around the freeway. Managed freeways aim to make optimal use of roadway infrastructure, enhance safety and efficiency, and address the needs of roadway users, travelers, and stakeholders. Some ATM/ITS treatments incorporated in a managed freeway are coordinated adaptive ramp meters, dynamic lane assignment, queue warning, variable speed limits, hard shoulder running, and signal system timing. Managed Freeway concepts have gained popularity internationally with successful implementations in countries such as Australia and the United Kingdom. The North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT) plans to implement Managed Freeway concepts for the first time on two sections of the I-40 in the Raleigh-Durham area. These managed freeway initiatives will pave the way for potential opportunities to measure benefits and provide guidance for future implementation of managed freeways elsewhere in the state. This research effort will encompass the development of a before and after analysis framework, mobility and safety performance measures identification, benefit and cost analysis, and guidance documents to enable NCDOT to effectively identify and select optimal locations and technologies for managed freeways deployment.

Center for Excellence on Connected Autonomous Vehicles NC-CAV with Project 1 CAV Impacts on Traffic Intersection Capacity and Transportation Revenue Collections, Project 2 Assessing NC Readiness for CAVs in Traditional and Emerging infrastructure needs, and Project 3 Developing and implementing CAV-UAV Collaboration for Advancing the Transportation systems.

Zipper merge refers to a convention for merging traffic into a reduced number of lanes, where drivers use both lanes to advance to the lane reduction point and merge at that location, alternating turns. In a dynamic zipper merge system, the technique switches between the zipper and conventional early merge depending on the traffic condition since the zipper merge does not work well when the demand is low. The North Carolina Department of Transportation implemented the dynamic zipper merge system for several work zones in the past several years. Congruent with the outcomes from past case studies, NCDOT found evidence of its operational and safety benefits over the conventional early merge. However, because the technique comes with vast installation and maintenance cost, the significance of its benefits relative to the low-cost early merge needs to be known. Previous studies showed that the statistical significance of the difference in the performance using either technique was either not apparent or mixed across different metrics. Moreover, the transferability of the benefits across different demand levels is still unknown, likely because of the lack of observational data and the complexity of simulating the merging process. Also, the best practices of the device configurations of dynamic zipper merge for various lane closures are not well documented, underscoring the need for an investigation in this regard. The research team will address these questions by collecting and analyzing data from both previous and current applications of dynamic and early merge techniques. This effort will encompass collecting data on identifying best practices of device configurations of the dynamic zipper merge for different lane closures, collecting traffic operation and safety data associated with dynamic and early merges, determining the statistical significance of the difference in their performance, and assessing the feasibility of the dynamic zipper merge for day-time lane closures. With the outcomes of this research, NCDOT can make more informed decisions on implementing this technique while potentially expanding the scope of dynamic zipper merge beyond the current practice.

Advanced technology vehicles (ATV) including connected vehicles (CV), non-connected automated vehicles (AV), and connected and automated vehicle (CAV) technologies and applications promise transformative changes in transportation system performance. Agencies need the capability to assess the planning, design, operations, and management implications of the presence of such vehicles with different levels of connectivity and automation on system performance. In addition, agencies need to assess the impacts of these technologies as part of their decision-making processes to plan, design, operate, and manage the transportation system.

Integrated Corridor Management (ICM) systems offer the potential to manage both travel demand and network demand in normal and abnormal conditions. Through increased awareness, decision-support, and institutional coordination, ICM systems strive to change the traditional reactive model of traffic management to a proactive approach. With ICM, system operators take action before corridor performance degrades and, in cases where degradation has already occurred, take action to promptly restore normal conditions. Traditionally, ICM is typically applied in an urban setting where multiple transportation modes are readily available. NCDOT has applied ICM principles, but in more rural applications where less modal and network options are likely to exist. These initiatives will provide potential opportunities to measure benefits and provide guidance for future implementation of ICM elsewhere in the state.

According to the Federal Highway Administration, there are more than 330,000 traffic signals in the US. Over 75% of these signals could be improved by updating their equipment or timing plans. Poor traffic signal timing accounts for nearly 300 million vehicle-hours of delay on major roadways alone. Traditional maintenance and operations methods rely on local knowledge, driver feedback/complaints, and long-range planning with more recent applications incorporating performance-based management. However, as agencies access more and more data sources for performance measurement, there is difficulty in ensuring each source is appropriately utilized. Agencies must consider cost, availability, accuracy and accessibility of data sources and often are not fully informed of most factors aside from a cost estimate when deciding which data to use. This project will review these data sources including ATSPM, connected and instrumented vehicles, commercial probe data and Bluetooth/WiFi data and develop a framework in which combined performance measures can be created through data fusion. These measures will be validated using simulation and NGSIM datasets and summarized for use by local and state agencies with various data sources available.

Traffic Analysis Tools-Assessment, Comparison, and Validation Study 2019-2021