Marysville will serve as host for this year’s OmniAir Consortium Plugfest.
The event bills itself as “the premier testing event for connected vehicle technologies.”
This event is designed as a “readiness event” for connected vehicles and infrastructure.
Plugfest offers a week of comprehensive lab, field and security testing for a variety of connected technologies.
At Monday night’s work session, Marc Dilsaver, mobility and construction manager for Marysville, informed city council of the program. He said the testing will focus on having vehicles communicate with each other as well as with city infrastructure. Vehicles during the testing will have drivers. There is technology built into or installed in vehicles that will be able to communicate with other, similarly equipped vehicles and with the city infrastructure.
Dilsaver said the testing will improve applications like red light violation warnings, pedestrian crossing warnings, emergency vehicle operation, curve speed warnings, spot weather and road condition warnings and work and reduced speed zone notifications.
Dilsaver used the red light violation warning technology as an example. He explained the technology will be able to warn drivers if they are in danger of running a light that hasn’t turned red yet. Dilsaver explained that the technology will communicate with city infrastructure that can tell the vehicle when a light will turn red. Based on the vehicle speed, driver behavior and traffic patterns, the technology can warn a driver that if they do not react, they will likely run a red light.
“It is a really great opportunity to do the field testing here,” Dilsaver said. “This brings people to the testing lab we have created here and marketed here.”
He said the city is “providing the forum and access to the technology for them to test their technology in a real world environment.”
Field testing will begin Nov. 10, and continue through Nov. 12 along the 33 Smart Mobility Corridor in Marysville and Dublin. As part of the testing, some city streets — including portions of London Avenue, South Main Street, and Ninth Street —will be closed Nov. 12. There will also be testing on Maple Street and Route 31, though it will not close those streets.
Dilsaver said he has had discussions with both the schools and the hospital to make sure road closures do not impact their operations. He said both organizations have been “great to work with.”
Dilsaver said the city is working with the hospital to provide alternate routes and “there is a whole plan for signage to get people to their services.”
He said the school is actually allowing Plugfest to use a portion of one of its parking lots as a staging ground for test vehicles. d
Laboratory bench testing will take place over five days at The Ohio State University, Center for Automotive Research.
OmniAir officials say the consortium is “a leading industry association promoting interoperability and certification for connected vehicle and ITS equipment.”
Consortium members include public agencies, private companies, research institutions and independent test labs.
Dilsaver said the event has come together quickly and organizers are still finalizing the clients which will be testing. Even so, he said city officials “quickly identified this was something we wanted to take part in.”
“This is really what we have marketed the Beta District as,” Dilsaver said.
He said the event is “exciting to be around. It is neat to be on the forefront.”
City Manager Terry Emery said that while technology companies are here for testing, the city also has a plan.
“Our goal is to showcase the corridor as a testing ground,” Emery said.
He said the hope is that some of the companies choose to locate in the area so they have more access to Marysville’s testing ability.
Dilsaver said Marysville is the ideal location and size for this type of event. He said every intersection in the city is already connected, though city staff will need to add some specific technology to intersections for the Plugfest.
“Anywhere a connected vehicle travels in Marysville, we are going to be able to capture it and have information,” Dilsaver said.
He said in larger communities, it is difficult to have every intersection connected. Additionally, he said with the sheer volume of traffic, a few connected vehicles will provide very minimal information.
Dilsaver said there are two connected vehicle testing projects getting started in the community. He said the first is to conduct testing in connected city, school and county vehicles. He said the second project would be on-board units (OBU) in 400 private vehicles in the community. He encouraged city residents to sign-up for the second project when it comes on line.
Several streets in Marysville will be impacted by the next week’s Plugfest. Field testing will begin Nov. 10, and continue through Nov. 12 along the 33 Smart Mobility Corridor in Marysville and Dublin. As part of the testing, portions of London Avenue, South Main Street and Ninth Street will be closed Nov. 12. Streets in red will be closed. The detour is highlighted in orange. There will also be testing on Maple Street and state Route 31, though it will not close those streets. (Graphic submitted)