Evaluating the influence of ConnectedTech Arrow Board KitTM on drivers’ speed choice in response to traffic incidents: a case study in Miami, Florida

iCone ConnectedTech Arrow Board Kit™ is a technology that leverages the benefits of connected vehicles and emerging technologies in transportation. The Kit™ connects with navigation applications, such as Waze and Google Maps to alert motorists of upcoming hazards. The goal of this study was to document the potential benefits of deploying the Kit™ on incident response vehicle (IRV) units in Florida. The goal was achieved through an evaluation of vehicle speed changes in response to the information disseminated by the ConnectedTech AB Kit™ to the navigation applications. A comparison was made between incident-free versus incident-affected traffic conditions, focusing on incidents responded to by the IRVs (with the technology) and the Road Rangers (RRs) (without the technology). Incident data and 5-min speed data were collected from the SunGuide® and Regional Integrated Transportation Information System (RITIS) databases, respectively. Results revealed that the average vehicle speeds were lower during incidents than during incident-free traffic conditions. The overall average speed reduction was 3.4 mph (5.4%) upstream of incidents, with an average reduction of 5.5 mph (8.9%) and 2.8 mph (4.5%) for incidents to which the IRVs and RRs responded, respectively. Speed variabilities were higher during incidents than when there was no incident, but higher for incidents that the IRVs responded to. The findings of this study could be beneficial to traffic incident management, particularly speed management during maintenance of traffic due to a traffic incident.