The Southwest Research Institute or SwRI is leading an $8 million project to develop a data exchange platform for the Florida Department of Transportation so it can analyze and communicate road conditions in real-time to the traveling public, state and local government entities, plus other stakeholders.
[Above graphic via SwRI]
In addition to real-time analysis, the platform will also support analysis of long-term historic data enabling data-driven infrastructure investments and various research initiatives, explained Michael Brown, an SwRI intelligent systems division engineer overseeing the project.
“The primary goal of this technology is to save lives and move people more efficiently on roadways by sharing real-time driving conditions,” he said in a statement. “This data exchange will lay the foundation for Florida DOT to send alerts to drivers and traffic managers to coordinate routing, road closures, and emergency response.”
Brown said this Florida DOT project would be among the first in the United States to develop a vehicle-to-everything or V2X data exchange, capturing data from thousands of devices across connected and automated vehicles or CAVs and infrastructure networks.
A key objective of the project is to standardize the collection, analysis and sharing of data from several proprietary systems, which have different coding and encryption methodologies, and to make additional considerations for privacy and safety.
Dan Rossiter, a SwRI assistant program manager, added that the V2X Data Exchange Platform also expects to encompass Florida DOT’s operational, in-development, and planned CAV project corridors.
“The system will enable Florida DOT to disseminate real-time CAV information to the automobile industry, logistics providers, and other third parties to consume for their specific applications,” he said.
The exchange will capture anonymous data both from standardized onboard units communicating directly with Florida DOT-owned roadside units and from the proprietary data feeds of various car manufacturers.
The system would then “fuse” that connected vehicle data with a broader stream of information from both Florida DOT-owned infrastructure and from third-party data feeds. This stream of “enriched data” will be the basis for real-time and historic analysis, leveraging a combination of machine learning and traditional algorithms, SwRI said.
Participants in the FDOT program include Ford Mobility, which will supply V2X data from its connected vehicle platform; California-based Iteris, a smart mobility company; Florida International University; Amazon Web Services; Google; and several OEMs and logistics and fleet companies.
Plans are also in development to make this data exchange – which Florida DOT will own – available to other public agencies throughout the United States, SwRI added.