Self-driving vehicles are coming. NCDOT is paying researchers to help us get ready.
Teams of researchers based at three state universities will spend the next three years developing ways to help North Carolina prepare for autonomous vehicles and other new transportation technologies.
The N.C. Department of Transportation announced Tuesday that it will give $1 million to each of the three teams to study transportation challenges facing the state. Most of those challenges have to do with technology, notably the expected introduction of electric and autonomous or self-driving cars and trucks.
“Disruptive technologies will reshape the transportation industry,” Transportation Secretary Jim Trogdon said in a statement. “This research will provide North Carolina with data we need to prepare for these changes.”
The research programs, called University Transportation Centers for Excellence, will be based at N.C. State, UNC-Chapel Hill and N.C. A&T, but will include members from other schools, including Duke and N.C. Central.
Each center will have a different focus:
▪ N.C. A&T will host the N.C. Transportation Center on Connected and Autonomous Vehicle Technology, or NC-CAV. The university will have a test track at Gateway Research Park in Greensboro and will work with the city to build a road between downtown and the university campus exclusively for autonomous vehicles.
▪ UNC-Chapel Hill’s Highway Safety Research Center will focus on the effect of autonomous vehicles and other technologies on safety, accessibility, mobility and public policy.
▪ N.C. State University’s Institute for Transportation Research and Education will research the use of cameras and sensors to predict traffic and reduce congestion. It will also research the management of fleets of autonomous vehicles and look for ways to use transportation to improve access to health care in rural areas.
Trogdon has emphasized the need for North Carolina to prepare for new transportation technologies. In January, NCDOT will co-host a transportation summit on the future of transportation. The featured speaker will be Tony Seba, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur who heads a think tank called RethinkX and who predicts that by 2030 nearly all road travel in the U.S. will be done via electric, on-demand autonomous vehicles owned by fleets.
The N.C. Transportation Summit will take place Jan. 8 and 9 in Raleigh. For information, go to www.nctransportationsummit.com.
