Traffic Signal Detection Technology Evaluation

The City of Charlotte Department of Transportation (CDOT) is seeking proposals from qualified vendors to provide advanced detection technology and assist with its installation at designated intersections. This effort supports a comparative analysis to identify the most suitable detection solution for the City. The selected detection systems must reliably identify all roadway users, including vehicles, pedestrians, cyclists, and scooters.

Participating vendors will engage in a field evaluation and must provide all necessary equipment, software, and installation assistance. The City intends to award a three-year contract with two optional one-year renewals, for a total potential term of five years. Evaluation criteria include detection capabilities, ease of installation and maintenance, technical compliance, feature set, data quality, experience, and cost competitiveness.

Traffic Data Collection and Processing Services

The City of Charlotte has a Traffic Count Program which collects many different types of data along streets (not interstates) within the City of Charlotte limits. The City gathers intersection count data (vehicles, vehicle classification, pedestrian, and bicyclist) using City-owned cameras and video processing by a third party. Mid-block count data (speed, volume and vehicle classification data) is mainly collected with pneumatic road tubes, and sometimes with video cameras.  The City collects other types of traffic data on an as-needed basis, such as: pedestrian corridor studies, vehicle occupancy studies, gap studies, etc. Generally, the City collects around 300 intersection turning movement counts and 800 mid-block counts a year.

Additionally, the Charlotte Regional Transportation Planning Organization (CRTPO) maintains the MPO Traffic Data Program which functions mainly outside of the City of Charlotte limits. This program provides member jurisdictions with needed traffic data used for the support of transportation planning and research efforts throughout the MPO planning area, which includes all of Iredell and Mecklenburg Counties and a significant portion of Union County.

The City and CRTPO seek to select one or multiple companies to collect and/or process a variety of traffic data and upload it to the City’s traffic and crash software database.