The Central Florida AV Proving Ground consists of multiple existing and planned facilities that will offer the most comprehensive testing arenas. From simulation at state-of-the-art universities, to “test tracks” offering extreme environmental and controlled scenario testing, to open deployment on select roadways, having these capabilities within one proving ground creates a more robust result for best safety practices and validation of automated transportation technology.

Understanding the need to disseminate the results obtained on the proving ground, the Partnership will collaborate with the Community of Practice and share findings on local, regional and national platforms. Each Partnership member will participate in regularly scheduled meetings to coordinate efforts, update safety reviews, and continue to develop the proving ground.

SunTrax

The Florida Department of Transportation’s Florida Turnpike Enterprise (FTE) and Florida Poly have committed to a long-term partnership to construct a new transportation technology testing facility, SunTrax. This testing site includes a 2.25-mile, oval track on a 400-acre site in Polk County, centrally located between Tampa and Orlando. The facility will be adjacent to FTE’s Polk Parkway (SR 540) just two miles south of the Florida Poly campus. The oval track includes infrastructure such as shelters, buildings, gantry structures, and a variety of mounting locations for roadside units and tolling equipment. The facility was designed around multiple scenarios such as single lane, multiple lanes, and parallel toll and express lanes. The 200-acre infield of the track will be dedicated to controlled automated and connected vehicle (CV) testing for arterial environments. Anticipated features include a learning laboratory, simulated city center, suburban and rural roadways, interconnected signalized intersections, interchange ramps, roundabouts, and various pavement surfaces. Areas of research include safety standards for environment, vehicular and pedestrian safety impacts, data management, cyber security, and equipment quality.

      

Driver Assisted Truck Platooning (DATP)

The Florida Department of Transportation’s Florida Turnpike Enterprise will be conducting the first state sponsored pilot test in the CV/AV realm in Florida in response to an opportunity established by the Florida House Bill 7027 (2016) to study the use and safe operation of the technology. The project includes a study and pilot test that will run truck platoons using proven and safe connected V2V technology in a 143-mile segment of the Turnpike Mainline (SR 91) from Orlando to Palm Beach. This segment is specifically selected as a proving ground to test the technology mainly because it serves as one of the segments of the Turnpike System with the largest movements of trucks. Medium and long term goals for DATP is to expand testing to the interstate system in Florida and have a southeast multistate corridor. Areas of research include safety and fuel savings to prepare for a potential commercial deployment.

       

ATTAIN Central Florida

The Florida Department of Transportation’s (FDOT) ATTAIN Central Florida program is deploying smart transportation technologies on public roads in Central Florida to improve reliability, reduce congestion and increase mobility and safety. ATTAIN Central Florida is funded by an Advanced Transportation and Congestion Management Technologies Deployment (ATCMTD) grant from the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and local matching funds. For more information, please visit CFLSmartRoads.com.

SR 434 CV Pilot

The Florida Department of Transporation (FDOT) DISTRICT 5 is working on the SR 434 CV PILOT. This project is located in Seminole County, north of the University of Central Florida (UCF) on SR 434, from north of McCulloch Road to east Mitchell Hammock Road. This Connected Vehicle pilot serves as a starting point for the PedSafe Greenway Deployment Project. This project will include Connected Vehicle technologies (DSRC, RSU, OBU) with CV applications like Pre-emption, Transit Priority Signal, Signal Performance Metrics and Signal Phasing and Timing, as well as others.

I-75 FRAME

The I-75 FRAME (Florida’s Regional Advanced Mobility Elements) project is located on the I-75 and US 301/441 corridors, connecting east-west arterials between these two corridors. The purpose of this project is to reroute the I-75 traffic during emergencies and incident managements to US 301/441 using east to west arterials as SR 500, SR 200 and SR 40. These efforts are part of the 2016 Central Office ATCMTD application to lessen the recurring and non-recurring congestion on I-75 between Gainesville and Wildwood/Ocala region. The project length comprises of FDOT Districts 2 and 5 jurisdictions where the northern and southern areas of this regional effort are located. Each District will lead the efforts of their areas which will deploy CV Technologies to better manage, operate, and maintain the multi-modal system and create an integrated corridor management solution. This includes the deployment of Automated Traffic Signal Performance Measures (ATSPM); RSUs and on-board units (OBUs); transit signal priority (TSP); pedestrian safety elements, and adding fiber optic cable on US 301/441 gaps. The goal of the project is to disseminate real-time information to the motorists during freeway incidents.  To access the 2016 ATCMTD Grant Application click here.

FRAME CV Testing

Since CV/AV technology is a new and rapidly evolving, and design standards and specifications are under development, a three-phased testing plan for the FRAME project is currently underway. Those three phases are signal shop (lab) testing, TERL testing, and on-site testing. District Five has recently undergone the lab testing component. The goal of this test was to evaluate communication between devices (primarily conversion of NTCIP to SAE J3725) and compatibility with existing infrastructure to ensure interoperability of applications across the District.   In a lab environment, the various RSUs and OBUs were tested to determine if full end-to-end communication such as basic safety messages (BSMs), map messages (MAP), and signal phasing and timing (SPaT) data were being transmitted and received successfully.  The lab setup included four (4) controller manufacturers, seven (7) RSU manufacturers, and five (5) OBU manufacturers devices.

Lab tours and presentations were conducted with the goal of providing attendees with an opportunity to see the first phase of the signal shop testing in person.  To access a copy of the presentation, click here.

Both lab and field testing are currently being undertaken. This would involve mounting the RSUs at viable intersections given the various controller types available by county.  While out on the field, the testing of the various messages described above with the addition of emergency vehicle pre-emption (EVP) as well as TSP will be done. Checks and balances will be validated to ensure that the equipment works within a “live” environment.