TAMPA, Fla. — The Tampa Hillsborough Expressway Authority (THEA) just received a $4 million federal grant to help reduce traffic congestion and emissions on the Selmon Expressway.

What You Need To Know

  • The Tampa Hillsborough Expressway Authority (THEA) just received a $4 million federal grant to help reduce traffic congestion

  • The grant is from the US Department of Energy

  • The goal is help lower travel time on the Selmon Expressway by 25%

The grant will fund new smart technology that can help detect traffic delays and let drivers know about it faster.

THEA CEO Greg Slater says they’ll be able to learn more about the traffic patterns on the Selmon Expressway.

“It’s actually about what’s causing the delays,” Slater said. “Is it a temporary disruption like a flat tire? Or are there areas where we are feeling friction and it’s starting to back traffic up?”

Those answers will come over the next year, as the Selmon uses what’s called Smart Eco-Driving Connectivity for Urban Roadway Efficiency (SECURE) V2X, a platform that gathers and sends traffic data between cars and infrastructure.

“We’ll have a full year cycle of detailed congestion. What’s happening, when it’s happening,” Slater said.

The funding for it comes from a $4 million Department of Energy grant.

One goal of the grant is to bring down emissions. Reducing drive times can help do that.

Once the data is gathered, it can be used to alert drivers about issues on the road through the Selmon’s connected vehicle technology, which they are currently testing. That way drivers can get notifications about issues on the Expressway.

“If you can use those pieces of information to let people make better, smoother decisions, then we can maximize the efficiency of the system,” Slater said.

The hope is this can eventually lower travel time on the Selmon Expressway by 25%, which is another goal of the grant.