TAMPA, Fla. (WFTS) — For so many people, the Selmon Expressway is their direct route to and from work. That includes Jonathan Tatum.
"I never know how long it's going to take me to get to work. It could be five minutes, it could be 15 minutes. It could be an hour and 30 minutes," he said.
While waiting in the traffic, Jonathan Tatum starts to think of what should be done.
"If there's an accident, I mean, good night. I mean, seriously. I'm trying to look for a way to pull off. Maybe they should add another exit, just you can detour, pivot a little bit," said Tatum.
But the Tampa Hillsborough Expressway Authority is taking a different route from Tatum's suggestion.
Greg Slater, the Executive Director of THEA tells me a $4 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Vehicle Technologies Office Research & Development Funding Program could help them cut down congestion by 25%.
The THEA and USF's Center for Urban Transportation Research (CUTR) are using the money to implement the SECURE V2X platform on the Selmon Expressway.
"The first phase is getting a really detailed understanding of what's happening with congestion on our entire system. So, where do we have friction points? Where do we have higher instances of disabled vehicles? Where do we have more volume than we were designed for?" said Slater.
After a year of studies, drivers will start to see the impacts.
The initiative uses connected vehicle technology to optimize traffic flow, reduce congestion, and improve safety.
"We'll start pushing messages out to our customer base and giving people, whether it's to their vehicle through connected vehicle infrastructure, or whether it's to a message board that's giving people or it's even pushing it out to things like Waze and Google Traffic if you're using navigation apps to give that information to them," he added.
Drivers could see up to 25% improvement in traffic time and a 15% reduction in energy consumption.
Tatum believes there should also be a way to compensate drivers stuck in traffic.
"If they could refund some of our tolls every once in a while, that'd be cool, too. You know, like, if it takes us more than 30 minutes to get Downtown from South Tampa, give me five bucks back."
By year three, Slater said drivers could see something similar.
"Can we use economic principles to help them incentivize that? So for instance, 'Hey, you're paying attention to our messages, therefore our system is running better. So I can give you a discount on your tolls, or I can incentivize that from an economic standpoint because you're a great driver and you're a great customer for us," he said.
The DOE announced $51.7 million in funding for 19 projects across the nation that, according to the website, "will advance research and development (R&D) critical to unlock innovative and efficient mobility options that are affordable for all Americans". THEA was the only Florida agency to be selected.
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