Learn how TxDOT reduced secondary crashes by 29%

About TxDOT Austin District Office

Everything’s bigger in Texas, including transportation. The Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) manages over 80,000 miles of roadways, the largest state-maintained highway system in the United States. In 2023, six of the ten fastest-growing counties in the United States were in Texas. The Austin metro area is the 26th most populous metro area in the country and was the second highest-growing major metro area in 2023 (breaking a 12-year streak as the fastest-growing major metro area in the country). All this growth comes with more cars, more bicycles, and more pedestrians, and demands mobility changes. TxDOT is meeting this demand head-on, currently executing several mega transportation projects, including the I-35 expansion in Austin. I-35 is one of the most congested highways in Texas and one of the busiest north-south corridors in the United States. As one of the largest and most complex infrastructure projects in the state’s history, with a budget exceeding $7 Billion, the I-35 capital express project aims to alleviate congestion, enhance safety, and improve mobility for both local and through traffic.

Challenges facing TxDOT Austin District

Roadway expansion projects, like the I-35 Capital Express project, are critical to supporting Texas and the Austin region’s growth and providing a positive experience for the public in the long term. However, as everyone knows, projects like the I-35 expansion can cause significant mobility challenges in the short term. Additionally, due to the limited coverage of conventional ITS systems and dependence on computer-aided dispatch for notification of incidents, detecting incidents that may be causing mobility challenges on an already strained system is often unreliable or inefficient. To ensure the impact to the public is minimized throughout the expansion project and into the future, TxDOT Austin District Office began researching technologies that would help them minimize congestion, reduce secondary crashes, and communicate quickly with the public.

The Solution: Rekor Command^®

TxDOT is an innovative transportation agency that was an early believer in the power of artificial intelligence (AI) to support their growing regions’ needs. They started researching Rekor Command^®, an AI-driven transportation management platform, having seen its potential from a partner agency, Central Texas Regional Mobility Authority (CTRMA), who had been using the platform since early 2020. After thoroughly researching the capabilities of the platform, Rekor Command was implemented in TxDOT Austin District in 2023 with the goal of leveraging AI and machine learning to enhance detection for faster traffic incident management, improving traffic management center operations, and improving overall safety relative to traditional approaches.

“The most valuable thing that we can ever talk about is life. And we know that one incident can produce another incident. When we can reduce the amount of time to detect, respond, and clear incidents, we reduce the probability of secondary crashes. Because even just a ladder in the roadway or a stalled vehicle can end up interrupting traffic and resulting in fatal crashes.” – Mike Arellano, Austin District Deputy District Engineer at Texas Department of Transportation

Leveraging Rekor Command, TxDOT Austin District has been able to detect more incidents faster, with high precision, leading to faster recovery and ultimately safer roads.

• 159% increase in incidents detected
• 8.4 minutes faster median detection time
• 83% of all incidents detected matched ground truth
• 44 minutes faster recovery
• 29% reduction in secondary crashes

“Having Rekor Command fully integrated into our system and our operators highly trained fills the gaps in our conventional ITS systems, ensuring we can detect incidents much faster. We're starting to see the benefits of faster response time because we can deploy the proper resources, which is an optimization of resources, and get back to normal operation, reducing secondary crashes.” – Mike Arellano, Austin District Deputy District Engineer at Texas Department of Transportation

Operational impacts are critical to helping reduce congestion in the Austin region. These operational savings also translate into real economic savings for the Austin region.

These statistics show the significant impact Rekor Command has had on operations, but again, the most important statistic isn’t a number at all, but how technology is impacting the lives of real Texans. One example of this impact is a recent incident involving a Texas senior. Rekor Command detected an incident, prompting the operator to look at the nearest CCTV camera to try to confirm. The standard view on the CCTV camera did not show the incident, but because Rekor Command had detected it, the operator zoomed in further. As they zoomed into the area, they caught sight of the incident. They could tell that this was a senior person with a flat tire who had pulled over onto the shoulder to try to change the tire themselves. Without Rekor Command, the standard CCTV camera sweep would have missed the incident, leaving this person on the side of the road by themself as traffic continued passing. But with Rekor Command, the operator was notified and validated the incident quickly, enabling them to promptly dispatch a Hero unit who arrived in minutes to change the tire and get the citizen off the roadway and on their way safely and efficiently.

Coordinating across the region

Implementing Rekor Command at TxDOT Austin District was a critical step in managing the regions mobility changes. However, the Central Texas region will see an unprecedented decade of infrastructure development, with over 35 major projects planned from 2023 to 2032. This level of development necessitates coordination and communication beyond the traditional walls of any single organization. To enable this collaboration, TxDOT Austin District Office, along with its regional partner agencies, including CTRMA, have created the Construction Partnership Program (CPP). This program is designed to ensure safety, maintain mobility, and reduce community impact, by creating the platform that will support construction coordination, communicate directly with the public, implement strategies to reduce traffic demand near construction projects, and use technology to optimize traffic flow.

Rekor Command, along with Rekor’s Incident Detection API and Work Zone Activity API, will be central in supporting CPP's integrated information-sharing platform and situational awareness strategies that are crucial to mitigating disruptions and ensuring long-term coordination and mobility enhancements.

Conclusion

Transforming our transportation system requires rethinking everything we know, including rethinking how we respond to incidents on the roads. Transportation agencies cannot transform our transportation system by simply using the same tools and processes they have used in the past, nor can they simply hire their way to transformation. Public and private partnerships are crucial to achieving the transformation needed to ensure a safer, more reliable, more sustainable, and more affordable experience for all travelers. Technologies like Rekor Command can be the force multiplier agencies need to truly achieve real-time traffic management and maximize their resources by seeing more of what is happening on the roadways, faster. The Texas Department of Transportation understands the power of AI to redefine what real-time traffic management looks and feels like, driving down response times and ultimately saving lives. Having seen the results in Austin, TxDOT is now working to expand the use of Rekor Command to more districts in Texas, ensuring all Texans feel the benefits of quicker incident response times - less congestion and ultimately fewer roadway fatalities.