“We love this smart technology,” said Holly Springs Fire Chief LeRoy Smith. “Before we installed sensors, we needed to deploy firefighters to check stream levels during major rain events.
Now, this technology saves us staff time and money while helping keep our community safe.”
Floodwaters were rising as the rain kept coming down in Holly Springs during a summer thunderstorm. Middle Creek was just inches from overflowing its banks and covering the asphalt on Holly Springs Road, making it unsafe for cars to drive through. But this time, Town of Holly Springs crews had a heads-up about the rising floodwaters due to an alarm going off from a sensor embedded in the stream, mobilizing public safety to block off the roadway before the water could become a problem.
Smart technology is the wave of the future and Holly Springs residents are reaping the benefits. Holly Springs is a part of a regional smart cities program that won a 2020 Smart Cities North America Award for its innovative use of technology in the smart water category. A smart city is a municipality that uses information and communication technologies to increase operational efficiency, share information with the public and improve both the quality of government services and citizen welfare.
“The first installation of Green Stream Technologies sensors in historically flood-prone creeks was so successful at anticipating flooding, that more sensors are now being installed throughout town,” said Anna Murphy, Holly Springs Economic Development Project Manager.
Another major advance in smart technology coming to the Town of Holly Springs will improve traffic congestion. When multiple phases of the project are complete, the town will have the ability to synchronize traffic signals and react in real time to divert traffic away from an accident.
Up until now, traffic signals have traditionally been connected to NCDOT through radio waves. This technology can be unreliable, timing patterns can drift and NCDOT has no way to know if there is an issue with a signal, unless they are contacted by phone, and cannot make any adjustments to the signals remotely. Because of foresight on the part of the Information Technology and Engineering Departments, Holly Springs laid down its own fiber network and then approached NCDOT to offer them a deal – they could tap into our pre-existing fiber network if they would synchronize our traffic signals so our community could have better service.
“They had never been asked this question before, since NCDOT usually runs their own fiber to signals that they operate. Offering this access accelerated the timeline for upgrading to fiber connectivity, further enforcing the strong and innovative partnership between the town and NCDOT, which reduces long-term costs for both organizations,” said Holly Springs Chief Information Technology Officer Jeff Wilson. “Once we got NCDOT approval, the North Carolina General Assembly also allocated nearly $400,000 to tie our fiber into the signal cabinets, to support this partnership.”
Work will begin this fall on linking signal cabinets and the system should be up and running by the end of the year. The long-range plan for this Intelligent Traffic Systems Initiative is to install cameras at intersections for monitoring (not enforcement) and create a command center in town that can immediately manipulate traffic signals to clear vehicles away from an accident scene and provide more insight into signal operations.
“Having a fiber network tied into our traffic signals will eventually give us the ability to react on the fly and if there is an accident on Hwy 55, we would be able to reroute traffic to Main Street immediately and time the signals accordingly,” said Kendra Parrish, Executive Director of Utilities & Infrastructure Services. “The fact that we will be able to ease traffic issues without the infrastructure costs of installing asphalt and creating new lanes, shows how smart technology is a game changer for our community.”
