The Michigan Department of Transportation pilot project on a shared connected and automated vehicle (CAV) travel lane will begin on Monday.
The project will be along westbound I-94 in western Wayne County from Belleville to Rawsonville roads.
Beginning Monday, work will begin to equip the lest lane of the highway with digital infrastructure to support a CAV lane and pilot project. The project is funded entirely by Cavnue, a company working to build advanced road systems in the U.S.
The initial phase of work is expected to be finished by early September, and then crews will complete roadway widening and resurfacing work, with the continuous left-lane closure expected through November.
According to MDOT, the vision for the corridor is to create CAV lanes to help increase the safety, efficiency, resilience and operations of roadways.
CAV lanes, according to the company, will provide a variety of benefits. The plan would be to have shuttles, that can bring people into areas, allow autonomous vehicles using the lanes to communicate with each other to move faster and more safely, but will also accommodate mixed traffic.
If all goes well, Cavnue said the information they learn could also be used to deploy CAV lans on Michigan Ave. and "potentially grow a network of CAV corridors connecting Southeast Michigan."
