524-24 SMART Grant Software Developer

The Ohio Department of Transportation has been developing the foundational elements for the Event Streaming Platform (ESP), with a goal of utilizing the newly available streaming data in combination with currently present static data, to create efficiencies throughout the department. These efforts have led to the identification of several use cases throughout the department. In 2022, ODOT was awarded a Phase 1 USDOT SMART Grant to build two proof of concept solutions focused on two of those use cases, aimed at improving roadway safety. The two proof of concept solutions to be developed with SMART Grant funds shall provide the following:  Incident detection and response initiation: ODOT will receive air bag deployment alerts directly from vehicle manufacturers and automatically provide crash location and severity information to emergency responders. The automatic dissemination of this information seeks to hasten emergency response, particularly in rural areas with less camera coverage. Crash prediction and proactive mitigation: Real-time and static roadway data, including speed, traffic volumes, weather, pavement conditions, workzones, average daily traffic volumes, transportation systems management and operations studies, etc., will be compared to historical data to identify scenarios that pose a higher probability of crashes occurring. The system will then provide mitigation recommendations to our Traffic Management Center operators to reduce the risk of crashes. For example, recommendations could include utilizing intelligent transportation systems (i.e., digital messages, ramp metering, lowering the speed limit) or pre-positioning law enforcement at identified high-risk locations.
ODOT’s ESP processes high volumes of real-time data streams from various sources in order to provide quick insights that can aid decision-making. The ESP was built with infrastructure as code (IaC) in mind.  A functioning ESP environment can be built using Docker, Github, an AWS subscription, and a handful of commands.  Developers can get to work immediately with all the required components installed in the docker container.Applications in the ESP are built like any normal application with inputs, processing, and outputs.  With no code, inputs can come from configurable connectors, IoT/Edge devices, and configurable REST APIs.  Processing or data aggregation can be performed with KSQL for low code efforts, Kafka Streams using Java, or custom coding using any language.  Outputs can be handled with no code using configurable connectors or REST APIs.A key concept of the ESP is that there will be a marketplace or “shopping mall” of data sources.  The ESP marketplace is where producers can publish/advertise their data sources and consumers can browse, discover, and subscribe to data sources or services with confidence that the protocols and technologies of those connectors and APIs are already supported in their ESP environment.The Phase 1 SMART Grant intends to prototype concepts, build internal buy-in and partnerships with stakeholders, and report on results, to inform how these concepts may be scaled up. Phase 2 of the SMART Grant is yet to be awarded, however, it is intended to be the “Implementation Phase” of the grant, where the proof of concept solutions will be refined and developed for the production environment and utilized in ODOT operations.