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Salt brine is routinely used by transportation agencies to pre-treat critical infrastructure such as bridges, ramps, and underpasses in advance of winter storms. This requires an operator turning on and off brine controls while driving at highway speeds, introducing driver distraction and consistency challenges. In urban areas, such as Indianapolis, a 5500-gallon tractor trailer with a gross vehicle weight of 80,000 pounds is typically used and the driver may have 1200 on/off activations while covering 318 miles during a pre-treatment shift. This study conducted in collaboration with Indiana Department of Transportation has worked with their truck upfitters to adapt geo-fenced agriculture spraying controls to seven trucks that use the Global Positioning System (GPS) position of the truck to activate the sprayer valves when the trucks enter and exit geo-fenced areas that require pre-treatment. This automated brine system enhances safety, reduces driver workload, and ensures the consistent application of brine in designated areas. Furthermore, as additional environmental constraints and reporting requirements evolve, this system has the capability of reducing application rates in sensitive areas and provides a comprehensive geo-coded application history. The Indiana Department of Transportation has scaled deployment for treating interstates and major arterials with brine. This deployment on 5500-gallon tankers, used on I-64/65/69/70/74, and 465, eliminates over 10,000 driver distraction events during every statewide pre-treatment event. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the country moves toward electric vehicles (EV), the United States is in the process of investing over USD 7.5 billion in EV charging stations, and Indiana has been allocated $100 million to invest in their EV charging network. In contrast to traditional "gas stations", EV charging times, depending on the charger power delivery rating, can require considerably longer dwell times. As a result, drivers tend to pair charging with other activities. This study looks at two EV public charging locations and monitors driver activity while charging, charge time, and station utilization over a 2-month period in Lafayette, Indiana. Over 4000 charging sessions at stations with varying power levels (350 kW, 150 kW, and 50 kW) were monitored, and the median charge time was between 28 and 36 min. A large variation in station utilization was observed at Electrify America charging stations that had a range of stations with 350 kW, 150 kW, and 50 kW available. The highest utilization rates by hour of day on average were observed at 25% at the 150 kW Tesla station. Driver activity during charging influenced dwell times, with the average dwell time of drivers who waited in their vehicles to charge being 10 min shorter than those who would travel to the shops. Rain in the forecast also impacted the number of users per day. Although there are no published metrics for EV utilization and associated driver activities, we believe examining this relationship will produce best practices for planning future investments in EV charging infrastructure as public and private sector partners develop a nationwide charging network. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With an influx of public and private sector investment in the electric vehicle (EV) domain, public agencies and stakeholders need objective, equitable and systematic processes for identifying candidate sites for siting charging stations. This paper reports on a case study examining the Indiana Interstate network using connected vehicle data (CV). The Indiana Interstate network analyzed by this study is composed of 1247 centerline miles along nine routes. Each month, approximately 13 billion CV records representing more than 44 million unique trips are generated along all roads in Indiana. For this study 3.02 billion records comprising 4.78 million trips on and around Indiana Interstates and Exits were analyzed for usage patterns. The CV data was predominantly from internal combustion engine vehicle (ICEV) passenger cars, but provides insight into exit utilization and dwell times at 544 exits on 9 interstate roadways to evaluate how their current usage would align with building out Indiana's Alternative Fuel Corridors. A pareto sorted graphic for the top 50 busiest exits in the state shows that all but two are not well served by fast charging infrastructure. The paper suggests this pareto sorted list as a good starting point for further analysis and identified 15 exits on Indiana interstates, if chosen for deploying charging infrastructure, would ensure full compliance. The results provide a systemwide look at present dwell patterns among ICEVs and help identify locations of interest that would most benefit from addition of charging infrastructure as the current fleet of ICEVs gradually transitions to EVs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The National Work Zone Safety Information Clearinghouse estimated there were approximately 115,000 work zone crashes with 842 fatalities in 2019. There is broad consensus that it is important for agencies to develop near real-time risk assessment of work zone traffic operations to proactively identify improvement opportunities. Due to the huge spatial distribution and relatively low frequency of crashes, legacy techniques of monitoring crash locations do not scale well for identifying all but the most severe construction zone operational problems. Past research identified hard braking and congestion as strong predictors for crashes in and around work zones. This paper presents scalable methodologies that can be used to systematically analyze hard-braking and speed data obtained from connected vehicles. These techniques have been applied to over 205 billion records in Indiana since 2019. These statewide data analytics are fused into concise graphics to identify work zones with emerging anomalies in congestion and/or hard braking. Weekly screening reports, institutionalized in Indiana for the past two years, provide information for agile agency monitoring and response. Case studies show quantitative changes in work zone performance measures, and corresponding surveillance video images illustrate the significance of these changes. During this period of near real-time monitoring and agile agency response, Indiana interstate crash rates have been reduced by 31% from 2019 to 2021, even though most 2021 interstate traffic volumes have rebounded to pre-pandemic 2019 volumes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]