No sooner had Florida residents in the Orlando area begun to complete cleanup activities following the sharp uppercut of wind-blown fury delivered from the Gulf of Mexico in mid-August by powerful and fast-moving Hurricane Charley, one of the most destructive storms in U.S. history, than another tropical storm threat loomed offshore just before Labor Day weekend.
Hurricane Frances looked to be an entirely different kind of storm—slow-moving, widespread, rain-laden and approaching from the Atlantic ocean—but forecasters were predicting it would intersect the path cut just weeks before by Hurricane Charley very close to the Orlando area, directly affecting one of the country’s most densely populated and frequently visited resort destinations.
As it approached landfall, Hurricane Frances wavered from its projected path, tracking slightly more southward. What affect would Frances have on storm-battered Orlando? How close would the worst winds and heaviest rains come? For many residents, the answers were provided by a network of traffic cameras installed on local highways by the Florida Department of Transportation.
“The local news in Orlando used the FDOT traffic cameras to track both hurricanes locally,” reported Doug Jamison, an Orlando resident and a project manager with the Central Florida Regional Transportation Authority. “By watching the weather deteriorate in real-time on camera, we were able to get information on where the feeder bands were and where the edge of the hurricane was, letting us know when we really needed to hunker down.”
Information central
Providing real-time weather, roadway and traffic information is just one of the potential applications of the $21 million project known as iFlorida (www.iFlorida.net), which will deploy and coordinate information systems statewide, focusing particularly on the Orlando metropolitan region in central Florida, while ultimately leveraging more than $80 million in regional investments.
Formally titled the “Surface Transportation Security and Reliability Information-System Model Deployment,” the iFlorida initiative was awarded a $10 million Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) grant that serves as the cornerstone of the project.
The FHWA regularly uses model deployments as a tool to illustrate what is possible for other states, hopefully motivating many or all states to increase investment and focus in the area of interest. In this case, the purpose of the grant is to demonstrate how the security and reliability of the surface transportation system can be enhanced through the widespread availability of real-time information.
Serving as the lead agency in managing the iFlorida project is the FDOT District Five traffic operations group, assisted by PBS&J.
Working ahead
Among the resources already available to project organizers is the network of installed ITS elements throughout the state and in central Florida in particular. In the period spanning 2002 to 2004, more than $80 million in ITS projects were started or completed in the central Florida region. These projects included the Orlando Orange County Expressway Authority’s (OOCEA) data collection system as well as improvements to the existing communications network that will be completed by Orange County Public Works.
The iFlorida project also benefits from the initiative and drive of key transportation professionals in the state, including those within the Florida DOT who directed the project application process as well as the department’s many public and private partners.
Another key resource is the Florida DOT’s ITS Working Group, which provides a mechanism to support statewide-related project components. In central Florida, the Central Florida Regional Transportation Operations Consortium—a collaboration of the area’s key transportation operations and management agencies—provides a mechanism for ongoing project coordination.
The state also has in place highly advanced emergency operations and an emerging homeland-security function that iFlorida will support and enhance. This rich environment for innovation and the availability of project-management resources associated with the Florida DOT will likely lead to further uses of the iFlorida project for ITS applications and testing.
Close surveillance
When completed, key accomplishments of the iFlorida project will include: the monitoring of travel times on roughly half the key arterial mileage and video monitoring of all key intersections in the Orlando area; the monitoring of travel times on all limited-access highways in the Orlando area; and the complete monitoring of the SR 528 corridor from the east coast through Orlando, one of five approved emergency one-way corridors in the state.
Statewide systems targeted by the iFlorida project include: an integrated reporting system collecting significant safety and capacity-restricting conditions along the Florida Intrastate Highway System; a statewide 5-1-1 traveler information telephone system and enhancements to the existing Central Florida 5-1-1 system to include all monitored roads, transit and airport information; and a statewide traveler-information web portal as well as a new central Florida regional website to include all available information.
Other benefits foreseen as products of iFlorida: a one-stop source for third parties who wish to access and use iFlorida data, either for real-time or historical applications; enhanced weather information specifically tailored for transportation uses, available to both agency operators and the traveling public; and security monitoring on two critical bridges.
Permanent move
The iFlorida project has been formally divided into two stages. A two-year design and deployment phase began in May 2003 and will be followed by a two-year operational period to support the national evaluation that will be ongoing during that time. Following the project’s completion in May 2007, project elements will become permanent fixtures supporting transportation operations in Florida.
Specific components of the iFlorida project to be carried out during both the first and second phases will include the deployment of field devices in central Florida including roadway travel time and speed sensors, CCTV cameras and variable speed limit signs, along with extensions to the existing fiber-optic network to improve network reliability and expand the region’s communications backbone.
Also to be deployed in the initial stages of the iFlorida project are road weather sensors in the central Florida region to better facilitate National Weather Service forecasting and to provide weather conditions and alerts for specific roadway segments throughout the state.
The iFlorida model deployment also will involve the co-location of a number of traffic monitoring sites with Florida DOT microwave communication towers located along major travel routes to provide real-time monitoring of key inter-urban corridors, and the placement of security-monitoring devices and management software on two major bridges.
Looking at May
Information-collection components of the iFlorida system to be deployed in its initial stages will consist of an Internet-based information management tool that will collect, fuse and disseminate transportation system-related conditions information for the Florida Intrastate Highway System throughout the state, as well as more-detailed, multimodal condition information for the central Florida region.
Information systems also will involve development of a new Central Florida Data Warehouse to incorporate the new data sources from iFlorida and make all such data available through a central Florida website as well as to licensed third parties.
Key to iFlorida’s usefulness as a demonstration project will be the series of studies and reports conducted and issued at various stages of the project. These will include:
- Recommended practices for emergency evacuation of attractions and special event venues (working with the Daytona International Speedway);
- The effectiveness of alternative routes and transportation-management strategies related to disabled or destroyed bridges;
- A vulnerability assessment of a regional traffic management center;
- The application of automated travel-time data generated by the project to facilitate region-wide roadway reliability; and
- An analysis of comprehensive multimodal data used to improve regional planning and decision making.
With key elements scheduled to be operational by May 2005, iFlorida promises to provide a significant milestone in the development of transportation “infostructures” that enhance safety, reliability and security through widespread availability of real-time information.
TME
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