TEXT: INTRO TO GRANTS
Connected Vehicle Acceleration Zone
The Connected Vehicle Acceleration Zone (CVAZ) is an innovative transportation technology initiative led by the Maricopa County Department of Transportation to enhance roadway safety, mobility, and efficiency through next-generation vehicle communication systems.
The project deploys vehicle-to-everything (V2X) technology across strategic corridors in Maricopa County. CVAZ enables vehicles, infrastructure, and other road users such as pedestrians and cyclists to communicate in real time, improving situational awareness, and reducing traffic conflicts.
The deployment includes equipping 750 signalized intersections with V2X infrastructure and outfitting approximately 400 vehicles (including emergency response, freight, and transit fleets) with onboard units, facilitating direct and network-based communication systems. Key goals are to improve safety for all roadway users, decrease delays, enhance transit and freight reliability, reduce emissions, and demonstrate interoperability across jurisdictions and systems.
CVAZ will showcase critical applications such as Emergency Vehicle Preemption, Transit and Freight Signal Priority, and Vulnerable Road User Safety to shorten emergency response times, improve schedule adherence, minimize congestion, and better protect pedestrians and cyclists.
Overall, the project aims to prepare the region for connected mobility, support long-term transportation innovation, and share performance results with partners at state and federal levels.
Connecting the West
Connecting the West is a multi-state initiative led by the Utah, Colorado, and Wyoming Departments of Transportation to deploy Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X) technology across state lines.
Funded by the U.S. Department of Transportation, the project focuses on improving driver and pedestrian safety through tools such as signal preemption, transit signal priority, LiDAR detection at intersections, Traveler Information Messages (TIMs), and multi-state interoperability.
Equipped vehicles communicate directly with surrounding infrastructure, enabling emergency vehicles to maintain green lights, helping public transit stay on schedule, detecting pedestrians at busy intersections, and delivering real-time traffic and weather alerts to drivers. Acting as a ‘digital seatbelt’, this technology provides an additional layer of unseen protection to drivers and those around them.
By integrating innovative technology with collaborative efforts between states, the Connecting the West program is setting a new standard for roadway safety and efficiency, ensuring that every trip is safer, more reliable and interoperable.
Texas TRUST: Transforming Roads Unleashing Smart Technologies Project
The Texas Transforming Roads Unleashing Smart Technologies (TRUST) project is a large-scale initiative focused on accelerating the deployment and evaluation of vehicle to everything (V2X) technologies across Texas.
Led by the Texas A&M Transportation Institute in collaboration with TxDOT, local agencies, and industry partners, the project aims to improve roadway safety, mobility, and system efficiency through real-world applications and deployments.
Texas TRUST includes 15 use cases across urban, suburban, and rural environments, such as SPaT-enabled intersections to support vulnerable road users, emergency vehicle preemption, transit signal priority, wrong-way driver detection, flood warning systems, and curve speed warning applications.
These applications will be deployed across Bryan/College Station and the Greater Houston region, extending along the corridors that link these two metropolitan areas. The deployment spans more than 300 miles of National Highway System and supports hundreds of thousands of daily trips across a region serving over five million residents.
By combining technical deployment with outreach and evaluation, Texas TRUST positions Texas as a national leader in advancing V2X technology. The project not only demonstrates scalable, real-world applications but also provides a replicable model for future deployments nationwide.
