Utah DOT rented equipment for a portable variable speed limit system for an average daily cost of between $173 and $329.

Utah Department of Transportation (UDOT) implements dynamic management of portable variable speed limit (PVSL) technology to reduce regulatory speed limits through an active work space.

Made Public Date
07/23/2018
Identifier
2018-SC00404
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Summary Information

The Utah Department of Transportation (UDOT) was selected as a recipient of FHWA’s Accelerated Innovation Deployment (AID) Demonstration grant to fund the use of a portable variable speed limit (PVSL) system on four roadway construction projects along I-15 and I-80, with a focus to:

  • Encourage significant driver speed reductions within active work spaces where construction personnel are on site
  • Adjust speed limits automatically in accordance with speed harmonization principles
  • Minimize the length of the active work spaces for which the significant speed reductions are applied to encourage driver compliance with the speed limit
  • Increase regulatory speed limits when workers are not present
  • Provide a portable system that is easy for construction personnel to use.


This PVSL system used a dynamic variable speed limit (VSL) algorithm to raise and lower the regulatory speed limits. The PVSL system also provided a queue warning algorithm that operated independent of the VSL algorithm to control messages posted on the portable variable message sign (PVMS) trailers to disseminate dynamic information to drivers.

System Cost

  • A vendor was selected and awarded a contract covering the four deployment projects for 30 days each. Equipment rental cost for the PVSL system was between $173 and $329 per day, depending on the deployment scenario. The queue warning system was an additional $194 per day.
  • In addition to the cost of renting the equipment, system deployment budgets are required to address equipment mobilization, training, and software configuration. It was determined that a 0.5 full-time equivalent of a field person’s time is needed to ensure the system transitions in parallel with construction activities and the AWS.
System Cost

Equipment rental cost for portable variable speed limit system: $173 - $329 (per day)