(words whooshing)
- [Narrator] When an accident or emergency occurs,
first responders must move quickly and safely.
So it's important for drivers to be aware of,
and accommodate emergency vehicles
that are traveling to an incident.
TxDOT and researchers at the
Texas A&M Transportation Institute
are exploring a way to improve driver awareness, safety,
and emergency response time
using connected vehicle technology.
- Starting through the project,
we went to talk to the fire department,
one of our fire department,
and just so happened that the weekend before,
Fire Chief got T-boned by a driver
because even though he's running all his lights on,
but driver wasn't pay attention to the,
he just pay attention to signal,
because the chief running a red.
So the driver just T-boned into Chief.
- We all have the experience
that when we stop at a red light at a intersection,
we hear a siren,
but we don't know where the emergency vehicle
is coming from.
So with the advancement of CV technology,
the connected vehicle technology,
we've got an opportunity to improve the situation.
So in this project,
we probed into the feasibility of leveraging
the CV technology,
improving our emergency response performance.
- With connected vehicle,
we are allowed to send out message to oncoming vehicle.
So when there's a preemption occurring at the intersection,
every vehicle within the geofencing
will receive a message in there, either through a app,
or maybe some of these without it,
they already have a built-in system
into the vehicle already,
so they can receive that information.
- The project is based in Houston.
And we've got support from the TxDOT Houston district
and the Houston TranStar here.
They provided us with valuable technical advice
and they provided assistance
for us to test the system in the field.
So our TTI folks from multiple programs worked together
in designing, developing, and testing the prototype systems.
And then our TTI has this amazing facility,
the Smart Intersection at the RELLIS campus.
It has a fully functioning,
a signalized intersection and the wrong way.
It's a perfect location for us to test our systems there
to verify the functionality of the V2X messages.
After that, we tested the system at field locations
in Houston under real traffic condition.
- One of the key takeaway of this project
is that we're not here to change
existing current operating system.
The operating equipment that they're using right now.
We're just adding one more piece of equipment
into a vehicle.
So basically, there's no change in the current operation.
We just add one more piece of equipment in there
where we standardize for entire, basically in theory, right?
We could come up in theory,
standardize for entire United States.
- The technology allows pretty good interoperability
between devices from different vendors.
It's very possible we can implement
a standardized preemption system
across multiple jurisdictions with a minimum cost.
So we believe that will be very beneficial
for emergency response process in the region,
in a large region, like the greater Houston area.
- [Narrator] For more information
and to find the publications for this project,
please visit the TxDOT research library
at the link shown below.