The N.C. Department of Transportation has received a $1.5 million federal grant to help make driving safer, particularly through work zones. The NCDOT’s Mobility and Safety Division will use the grant to develop a system that sends alerts to travelers about the need to slow down, stop or change lanes. Currently, the NCDOT is sending alerts to commercial truck drivers about slow traffic ahead on a small scale. A crash in a work zone can cause long backups and divert traffic onto nearby local streets. Interstate 40 construction in Haywood County, west of Asheville is one of the areas this will be started in. The NCDOT hopes to be able to expand this new service to other areas of the state in the future. The project also includes developing a way to send traveler alerts directly to connected and autonomous vehicles. The department is working with many partners to get the information into a format that can be used by popular traveler apps. The project will not affect the NCDOT’s website for travelers, DriveNC.gov, which will function the same for the public.
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