The Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) and The Ray today announced the second phase of the collaborative vehicle-to-everything (V2X) infrastructure development project on The Ray Highway along I-85 in West Georgia.
GDOT announced Kia as the OEM partner, supported by HATCI (Hyundai America Technical Center, Inc.). With the inclusion of Kia and HATCI, GDOT and The Ray will expand the use of Panasonic technology to directly engage an auto OEM for automotive collaboration on connected vehicle applications, such as freight signal priority and road work zone warnings, to improve transportation safety and enable more efficient driving.
The public-private-philanthropic partnership began in 2019 to create and install a digital testing environment focused on critical interstate use cases, such as crash and weather warnings, for stakeholder engagement and education. The first phase of work focused on an 18-mile corridor of rural interstate, known as The Ray Highway, and established a connected vehicle ecosystem with six dual-mode and dual-active roadside radios, a number of cellular V2X (C-V2X) GDOT connected vehicles, and the CIRRUS by Panasonic cloud-based data management platform.
The new project phase, announced today, not only expands the partnership but nearly triples the project’s breadth by adding seven new radios and 10 additional C-V2X connected vehicles. Information delivered from the dual-active radios, called “traveler information messages” (TIMs), will be delivered and displayed into the vehicles with a heads-up display (HUD) that reduces driver distraction.
“Smart, connected infrastructure on our highways is a game changer for driver safety,” Harriet Anderson Langford, president and founder of The Ray, said in a statement. “We are on a journey with GDOT to understand the road safety, economic, and efficiency opportunities that could be won with this technology. Now, with our collaboration of expertise and Hyundai and Kia’s presence in Georgia/Alabama, we have the potential to scale projects across the Southeast, in cities, and on our rural highways.”
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SOURCE: The Ray