Emergency - Focused
Transportation Technology Program Launched

A partnership of several local government agencies and private companies led by Maricopa County Department of Transportation and Arizona Department of Transportation is working to develop a state-of-the-art system that will reduce emergency response time to traffic incidents as well as enhance safety for the public and emergency responder personnel.

The new system is called the Emergency Vehicle Infrastructure Integration (E-VII) system and is focused on researching and developing technology to assist emergency-responder vehicles.

Currently, some emergency vehicles have the ability to send a signal to traffic signals which stops cross traffic so the emergency vehicle can go through the intersection more safely. However, the system is not intelligent enough to properly function if it receives signals from multiple emergency vehicles coming from more than one direction. This is one area where E-VII could provide a benefit.

The Arizona E-VII initiative has developed concepts and will be developing applications that are focused on emergency service patrols and responders, including Maricopa County’s Regional Emergency Action Coordinating Team (REACT) arterial incident response fleet and Arizona DOT’s ALERT freeway incident responses teams.

Elements of this project are also looking at how emergency vehicles can share real-time data with other emergency vehicles.

The project is jointly funded and managed by the Federal Highway Administration, Arizona and Maricopa County DOTs. Other partners in the e-VII initiative include the University of Arizona, Arizona State University, Kimley-Horn and Associates, and Econolite.

As the project moves forward, the Arizona e-VII partnership expects to expand to include law enforcement, fire and other emergency responders in the Phoenix metropolitan area.

The University of Arizona ATLAS center will lead the application development and test them in a laboratory ‘proof of concept’. Arizona State University will be a partner for the evaluation component.

Following the proof of concept in the ATLAS lab, a demonstration site will be set up in Maricopa County to test and evaluate the e-VII applications in the field. This field trial will put the concepts to the test in a ‘real-world’ environment, and demonstrate how vehicles and roadside equipment (such as a traffic signal) are able to exchange information in real-time and provide in-vehicle information and priority to incident response vehicles. The technology will also be tested at the incident scene locations to enhance real-time incident information to motorists.

A key component of the VII programs is for vehicles to be able to communicate with each other to cut down crashes. This would apply during regular driving as well as for emergency responders.

Michigan and California are both leading VII initiatives in their states and New York State is in the early stages of developing a VII program focused on commercial vehicles

The Arizona e-VII initiative has a very unique focus on incident management and emergency response, which is not currently being addressed by other state or national VII efforts. The Arizona partnership intends to coordinate with these other VII deployers to share lessons learned and leverage ongoing research and development.

Caption: Arizona officials got a hands-on look at how technology on-board an emergency response vehicle could communicate with roadside equipment at an April 2007 VII Technology Showcase in Phoenix, Arizona. REACT arterial incident response trucks were outfitted with on-board systems to demonstrate roadside-to-vehicle communications.

Pictured left to right are:  John Hauskins, Director, Maricopa County DOT; Representative Steve Farley (AZ District 28); Victor Mendez, Director, Arizona DOT; Neil Schuster, former Chief Executive Officer, ITS America.

For details contact:

Faisal Saleem
Arizona E-VII Program Manager
2901 W. Durango St.
Phoenix AZ 85009
Tel: (602) 506 1241
Email: faisalsaleem@mail.maricopa.gov