TAMPA, Fla. — An average of 250,000 cars pass over the Lee Roy Selmon Expressway every day.
Over the last few years, the Expressway has seen multiple "record travel days," most recently on March 1, with more than 265,000 drivers on the road.
Gregory Slater, the CEO and executive director at the Tampa Hillsborough Expressway Authority (THEA) said, "We're seeing tremendous growth. We're seeing growth in traffic. We're seeing growth in activity at different times of the day."
That unprecedented growth needs smart solutions, which is why THEA is using data collected on the roads and artificial intelligence to create proactive solutions to what is needed on our roadways.
That includes analyzing every ramp and how many lanes are on each roadway.
"We now have some of these expressway ramps that are kind of feeding into these dense urban environments. And so what we're trying to do is look at them systematically one by one and say, 'Hey, is this the right ramp for where people are coming from, where they're going to? Are we feeding into the right, appropriate area?'" Slater explained.
One major trend they're tracking on our roadways is more people on the roads in the middle of the day, a suspected result of Tampa's shifting workforce.
"The work-from-home demographic in travel data is the largest growing mode of travel," Slater said. "So as we see these record numbers of people moving to the Tampa region, you know, what we're trying to figure out is how many of those are work-from-home and 'I don't need to drive to work every day', versus 'I'm coming to Tampa and I'm going to work a 9 to 5.'"
Slater says the roadways themselves will be getting smarter, with more use of artificial intelligence.
"I know that our system is going to back up when there's a Lightning game, and in five years, our system will know there's a Lightning game."
Slater explained how AI could be used to stop roadway backups.
"Let's say we can have sensors on the Expressway that say, 'Hey, I'm seeing a lot of volume that's going to trigger this backup two miles from now, and I can prevent this backup two miles from now if I can extend the green time on that signal three blocks up.'"
Slater said the ultimate goal is staying ready for Tampa Bay's future.
"We want to make sure that the infrastructure that we're building is not for where Tampa was ten and 15 years ago," Slater said. "We want to make sure we're building infrastructure for where Tampa is headed over the next 10 to 15 years."