Connected vehicle technology from Applied Information had been selected by the City of Evansville, Indiana, to give emergency vehicles preemptive green lights at traffic signals – reducing response times and improving safety at intersections.
Traffic Control Corporation of Woodridge, IL, is Applied Information’s partner on the project that includes installing the technology at 230 traffic signals and on 40 emergency vehicles.
The preemption technology uses LTE cellular vehicle-to-everything (C-V2X Network) connectivity, with redundant 900MHz radio, which enables emergency vehicles to communicate with multiple traffic signals in the direction of travel and change the light to green or hold the light green.
Traffic in front of the emergency vehicle is kept moving while oncoming and cross-traffic is brought safely to a halt. Deployments in other cities indicate a time savings of about 10 seconds or more per light using the technology.
“Deploying the preemption system will help to ensure our firefighters get to the scene safely and quickly, as well as safeguard the public we are sworn to protect and serve,” said Paul Anslinger, assistant fire chief of the Evansville Fire Department.
“Assistant Chief Anslinger and the City of Evansville are taking leadership roles in Indiana by deploying the latest Smart Cities, Connected Vehicle technology that will help save lives on a daily basis,” said John S. Lizzadro, Jr., President of Traffic Control Corporation. “We are very excited to be the city’s partner, along with Applied Information, to improve safety and reduce the response time of emergency personnel when responding to someone in need.”
“We are pleased to have been selected by the City of Evansville, along with Traffic Control Corporations, to provide this life-saving technology for its first responders,” said Bryan Mulligan, President of Applied Information, Inc. “As Applied Information’s first major Smart Cities deployment in Indiana, it is a significant milestone for the company and the technology.”
The total project contract value is US$4 million and comes from federal funds. The deployment is scheduled to be completed in the fall of 2021.
