Connected vehicles can improve safety and reduce traffic congestion. Image courtesy of the U.S. Department of Transportation
The City and County of Denver council has approved a $12 million program to reduce traffic congestion that includes adding connected vehicle technology to 1,500 fleet vehicles, the Denver Post reported.
The connected vehicle portion calls for adding this technology to city vehicles in a small geographic area to jump-start market penetration, better understand how connected communication helps residents’ commuting experience, upgrade the agency’s traffic management system, and provide better data to citizens, according to city documents.
The other two projects are connected freight, to improve routing of delivery trucks and freight vehicles currently using local neighborhood roads, and connected citizens, which includes automated pedestrian detection and notification technology at intersections.
Half of the funding comes from the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Advanced Transportation and Congestion Management Technologies Deployment Program (ATCMTD) grant, which was announced in late 2016; the city’s capital improvement program funds will be used to match the grant.
Denver was one of the seven finalists of the U.S. DOT’s Smart City Challenge.
