Cost-effective and Reliable Data and Communication Infrastructure for Enhancing Rural Transportation Safety and Efficiency

According to the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS), 43% of all roadway fatalities occur on rural roads, although only 19% of the US population lives in rural areas. This is largely due to unique challenges associated with rural roads (e.g., varying roadway geometrics, frequent animal crossings, reduced cell phone and communication coverage). This project will address these challenges and improve roadway safety conditions and transportation efficiency on rural roads by leveraging enhanced network connectivity, integrated multi-source data, improved analytics, and secure, optimally built connected infrastructure. The project will use different tools such as Vehicle-to-Infrastructure (V2I), secure data sharing techniques, artificial intelligence (AI), networked sensors, and computer vision. Project outcomes include using connected and autonomous vehicles (CAVs) as mobile sensing probes and connected smart infrastructure with low-cost sensors to acquire location specific data that can be used for advance warning of pedestrians and bicyclists, animals, stopped vehicles, and other potential hazardous roadway conditions. These detection and warning systems will generate warning messages that will be sent to nearby vehicles via Cellular Vehicle-to-Everything (C-V2X). Since transportation data is heterogeneous and varies in type, size, and time sensitivity, novel, cost-effective, and secure data infrastructure is needed to improve rural mobility and safety. The project will result in a secure, cost-effective, and scalable data infrastructure that serves as a data foundation to support rural mobility and safety innovations and improvements. The resulting safety tools and data infrastructure will impact the operations, maintenance, and management of rural transportation systems and support the development of smart rural applications that will enable high-resolution local traveler information, community-oriented ridesharing, and Mobility as a Service (MaaS).