Construction Traveler Information System for I–35 Widening in Central Texas

slide 1: Construction Traveler Information System for I–35 Widening in Central Texas

Jerry Ullman
TTI

May 21, 2013
Bettendorf, Iowa

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slide 2: Overview: I–35 expansion project

200 directional miles – Central Texas 14 segments / 19 projects Costs: ~$2.1B Traffic Volumes 55,000 – 111,000 vehicles/day 66% through trips Trucks: 25% – 30% (75% at night) Over 5 years, ~ 185 million trips TxDOT mitigation of impacts Limited lane closures Blackout dates Completion incentives Complete 2017

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Overall, the improvements enhance safety by:

• bringing the interstate to current design standards,
• upgrading exits and entrance ramps,
• converting to one-way frontage roads along the entire length for both access and diversion,
• adding crossing points as well as U-turns at selected crossings,
• adding safety rest areas, and
• reducing congestion through the expansion of capacity.

 

Mitigate construction impacts, including:

• Access to businesses must be maintained,
• 6 day work week,
• Use of blackout dates, such as Christmas, New Years, and dates with major corridor activity,
• Freeway lane closure limited to evening,
  • Sunday from 10:00 pm – 7:00 am
  • Monday through Friday from 7:00 pm – 7:00 am
• Contractor assessed lane rental fees, and
• Incentives for completing construction ahead of schedule.

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slide 3: Identifying the Problems/Constraints

1. Potential for queues during nighttime main lane closures
2. Ramp, frontage road, and cross-street closures affecting local access
3. Potential for multiple nighttime lane closures along corridor
   • Localized delays
   • Cumulative delays for through travelers
4. Accelerated construction schedule
   • Limited coordination of lane closures
   • Lane closure locations constantly changing
   • ROW cross-section constantly changing

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slide 4: Specifying User Needs

Issue	Travelers Affected	Information Needed
Nighttime freeway lane closures creating traffic queues and speed differentials	All	Real-time warning about downstream queue presence and location
Ramp, frontage road, and cross-street closures hindering local access and limiting traffic flow	Local residents, regional travelers	Access to closure information, "pushed" to those who want it
Freeway lane closures and incidents creating localized delays	Local residents, regional travelers	Current travel times on I-35
Multiple lane closures along corridor on same night causing significant delays to overall trip	Regional, long-distance travelers	Cumulative predicted delays to be encountered along I-35

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Finally, TxDOT recognized that the possibility exists for longer-distance travelers on I-35 to encounter multiple delays due to the multiple projects active along I-35. A way to notify motorists about the combined delays of these projects on their trips was needed.

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slide 5: System Requirements

• Identification and tracking of planned lane closures
• Current travel time monitoring
• Forecasted travel conditions
• End-of-queue notification
• Information dissemination
  • Pre-trip, En-route
  • Email, Web, Social Media
• Integration to existing traffic management centers
• Operational and maintenance monitoring

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System goals:

• Create traveler information monitoring capability
• Create work zone impacts assessments
• Actively monitor planned closures
• Create traveler information dissemination

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slide 6: Identifying Alternatives

Standard TxDOT/contractor traveler information dissemination methods Commercial-Off-The-Shelf (COTS) systems ✓ Customized solution involving the integration of technologies

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slide 7: Concept of Operations

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slide 8: Systems Diagram

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slide 9: System Design Components

• Actively managed lane closure database (PCNS)

• Automated analysis of potential impacts of lane closures (LCAS)

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slide 10: Components (cont’d)

Bluetooth monitoring of current travel times over 2-5 mile segments
Deployment of end–of–queue warning technology when and where needed (based on queue analysis)

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slide 11: Components (cont'd)

Advance notification of lane closure impacts Up to 7 days out Updated daily Email and feed to TxDOT websites My35.org DriveTexas.org Future corridor impacts under development

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slide 12: Components (cont'd)

Current travel times via PCMS 21 signs 7-10 mile spacing Integrated with TxDOT LoneStar software C2C communication Allows TxDOT personnel to take over sign control

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• Multiple vendors of signs
• Some cities have multiple signs to that destination
• ~ 10 mile spacings.

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slide 13: Components (cont'd)

Hybrid forecasted delay signs Targeting long-distance travelers en–route Based on expected arrival times to queues

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slide 14: Implementation/Procurement

• Field monitoring devices procured and deployed through a contract with TTI
• End-of-queue warning technology procured through project change orders
• Corridor delay forecasting development and calibration continues
• Corridor performance metrics development continues

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slide 15: Evaluation – Lane closure notifications

1100 email recipients Usefulness 81% useful 91% easy to understand 93% abbreviations easy to understand 90% right amount of detail Format: 67% continue current 33% customize for my location Points to through nature of trips

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slide 16: Evaluation – Travel Times via PCMS

91% had seen 83% useful 82% frequent enough 92% agree with appropriateness of destination cities

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slide 17: Evaluation – Performance Metrics

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slide 18: Performance Metrics (cont'd)

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slide 19: Performance Metrics (cont'd)

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slide 20: Lessons learned

• Balancing lane closure advance notification time versus accuracy is a challenge
• Field infrastructure locations have to move quickly with phasing
  • Temporary deployments critical
  • Geolocate and track via GPS
• BT spacing can go 5-8 miles in rural settings
• Public does pay attention to real-time information, prefers specifics

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slide 21: Lessons learned (Cont.)

• Change ordering in technologies to existing projects continues to be a challenge
• Ensuring good data exchange protocols is critical → XML

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slide 22

Questions?

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