A number of US states were looking for connected vehicle solutions to improve both road safety and traffic throughput on their roadways. They posted separate procurement tenders and developed isolated solutions.

Each one of these projects implemented Transit Signal Priority and/or Emergency Vehicle Preemption applications with C-V2X technology at selected intersections along high-risk corridors. However, even at the early stages, it was clear that the scale of the work would be considerable, as the deployments covered dense and complex urban environment as well as rural roads with high traffic.

Some of the immediate benefits:

• Snow plows and buses saved fuel with less idling.

• Roads are cleared faster from snow.

• Cities could start piloting road safety solutions based on VRU detection

The size of the deployment is clearly visible when the numbers are placed next to each other:

• City of Denver have 165+ V2X-enabled intersections and 70+ snow plows

• Colorado state joined them with 350+ RSUs deployed along highways

  • They have also added 95 snow plows, 20+ buses, 15+35 fire trucks and ambulances with V2X OBUs

• Wyoming deployed 85 RSUs and 10 OBUs

• Utah deploys V2X in multiple rounds: 950+ RSUs (+600), 300+ OBUs (+250)

These sporadic deployments in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming states were brought together in the Connecting the West project, a $26M multi-state effort to improve safety and mobility through connected transportation technology.