Florida Department of Transportation Uses Data and Strategy to Keep Traffic Moving in the 352

OCALA, FL (352today.com) – The Florida Department of Transportation shared what they’ve been doing in the Ocala and Marion County area at the Ocala Marion County Transportation Planning Organization (TPO) Board meeting on Thursday, Nov. 13, 2025.

The FDOT is working to optimize the traffic network within the area. Transportation System Management and Operations involves interstate operations, so they operate I-75, arterial traffic signals and all of the state roads in the Ocala Marion County TPO area.

FDOT uses advanced technologies to try to improve the flow of traffic. The department’s projects are often centered on data-driven decision making. The more data the FDOT gets from technology, the better enabled it is to make decisions and provide that data to the public, so that they can in turn make better decisions about their travel options, said Jay Williams, FDOT district traffic operations engineer.

“Another tenet of TSMO is to be proactive instead of reactive,” said Williams. “We’re trying to use all of the technology and data to help us make decisions to help us proactively respond to traffic instead of being reactively behind the eight ball.”

An emphasis on safety 

First and foremost, the FDOT uses TSMO data-driven strategies to improve safety. The technology that the department deploys allows the FDOT to improve the safety of the roadways for the traveling public. It also provides more reliable travel time estimation and projections. What’s more, TSMO strategies are generally very cost-effective.

“For example, a traditional capacity project such as a widening, which will be very expensive, the FDOT tries to squeeze extra capacity through technology instead of spending lots of money on concrete and asphalt,” said Williams. “The department is optimizing the system performance, looking at ways to efficiently move traffic, and the department is also using real time information to make those decisions. The more data the department accumulates in real time, they’ll be able to make changes in real time.”

Sensors detect how much traffic is in an area; they can also detect the speed of traffic. Sensors are able to tell if there’s a slowdown in traffic, too. Sometimes the FDOT sensors will detect the type of traffic, be it trucks or larger vehicles versus passenger vehicles. The department also uses sensors at traffic signals to detect when there’s a vehicle there–for example, waiting to make a left turn in the intersection.

Quality of life in the community

How are the FDOT’s TSMO strategies being used right now in the Marion County area and in the FDOT’s District 5?

“Primarily we manage all of our assets on the freeways and the arterials from our regional transportation management center, which is housed in Sanford,” said Williams. “We’ve been in that facility since 2020. That’s where we manage all of the incidents along I-75 and all the arterials. We’re interconnected with both Marion County and the City of Ocala traffic signal system. We coordinate with first responders, the Florida Highway Patrol, the sheriff’s office, police departments, fire and rescue, when they’re responding to a crash on the roadway. We will adjust signal timing, so if there’s a crash that closes the road or shuts down a lane along I-75 and people are diverted to an alternate route, our team will work with the county and the city to adjust signal timings along those roadways.”

The FDOT also provides information to the public, through applications such as real-time traffic information distribution system FL511, Google Maps and Waze, and is interconnected to those systems. If you receive an alert when you’re using those applications that there’s a road or lane closed ahead, that’s information that the department is sharing with the public, so commuters can be better informed.

Upkeep and understanding

Equipment performance is also monitored by the department and is connected with all of the area’s traffic signal infrastructure, allowing the FDOT to monitor the equipment for issues. The FDOT will send out its maintenance teams or coordinate with the city or the county staff if there are maintenance issues they need to respond to.

The FDOT’s roadway clearance time is averaging about 75 minutes this year, with a little less than 3,000 total incidents, and 27 of those being considered major incidents where half or more of the capacity of the road was closed, said Williams.

One of the success stories the FDOT saw with a TSMO strategy occurred on the SR 326 interchange, a location that experienced a lot of offroad backups onto the mainline, which is a safety issue, said Williams.

“Something that we did relatively quickly, using technology, we implemented queue warning trailers, improved detection and then we implemented ramp signal flush plans, any time that ramp was backing up, we adjusted the signal timing on the ramp to flush more people out,” said Williams. “Those trailers and that system were implemented in June of this year. Prior to that being implemented, I think we were activating information about 30 times a month roughly, on those offroad backups. Since we put this system into place, we’re at about 150 activations per month. Having the information and being more proactive and pushing out those notices, instead of what we had been doing. It sort of checks all the boxes for TSMO strategy by improving safety, making our operations more efficient and it’s a relatively low-cost technology.”