Florida hires traffic-tech firm to reduce congestion around Tampa
The traffic technology firm Iteris on Wednesday announced that it’s won a $5 million contract from the Florida Department of Transportation to reduce congestion around the Tampa Bay area.
The company, which is contracted by many other states for similar services, said it will provide services for Florida aimed at reducing congestion and travel time for vehicles, bicycles and pedestrians. These include “performance monitoring and reporting, traffic signal timing plan updates, development and implementation of incident diversion routes, citizen comment response and resolution, and regular field inspections for maintenance.”
The contract includes services to be provided at about 500 intersections across a 3,330-square mile region containing 2.8 million residents and almost 20% of the state’s signalized intersections. The company said the services will improve traffic flow and reduce carbon emissions throughout Tampa, St. Petersburg, Clearwater and the rest of the five-county area surrounding Tampa Bay.
Other states to have recently contracted with Iteris include Utah, which last June awarded the firm a $2.7 million contract aimed at reducing congestion and improving roadway safety. That project uses Iteris’ “Inspect” software, for vehicle inspections, and a tool to track the state’s use of commercial vehicles.
Fremont, California, a midsize city in the San Francisco Bay Area, last October hired Iteris to turn a 10-mile stretch of its downtown area into a test bed for traffic safety technology. The city said at the time it wanted to experiment with artificial intelligence, analytics and connected vehicle communications to improve efficiency and safety.
Minnesota has used the firm to study its rural roads and intersections, for which officials in 2019 said they had little data.
