Exploring a Novel Public-Private-Partnership Data Sharing Policy through a collaborative Arterial Traffic Management System

According to the latest Urban Mobility Report published by Texas A&M Transportation Institute (TTI), urban traffic congestion, mostly generated on urban arterials, is a persistently growing problem. In 2017, the total congestion cost in 494 U.S. urban areas was $166 billion and the extra travel time was 8.8 billion hours. Urban congestion is negatively affecting the economy and society of U.S. To solve the urban congestion, the University of Texas Arlington and Georgia Institute of Technology will collaborate to investigate a new Public-Private-Partnership (PPP) Data Sharing Policy through developing a novel arterial system performance monitoring and optimization system. The new system uses traffic data from both public agencies and private resources. In addition to the traditional traffic data sets, such as traffic counts or traffic signal events, crowd-sourced vehicle trajectory data from private companies will also be included. The second focus of this research is to explore the unconventional optimization techniques for automated arterial system performance improvements. The arterial traffic performance monitoring and optimization are seamlessly integrated toward a highly automated arterial management framework to reduce the urban congestion and meet the future needs of travelers. These potential benefits of these two primary research thrusts will be demonstrated using an emergency vehicle application.