What is AZTech?
A Unique Partnership
More efficient mobility, less congestion, and a higher level of safety for travelers throughout the Phoenix metropolitan area
Led by the Maricopa County Department of Transportation and Arizona Department of Transportation, AZTech is a regional traffic management partnership in the Phoenix Metropolitan area that guides the application of Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) technologies for managing regional traffic. It carefully integrates individual traffic management strategies and technologies for the region's benefit while preserving operational control protocols important to individual jurisdictions.
We began as a Federally-sponsored traffic management Model Deployment Initiative (MDI) in 1996, one of four regions in the country seeking to demonstrate successful methods of using technology for traffic management and traveler information.
In the beginning, we were an experiment in regional cooperation — on both institutional and technological levels. When we completed the MDI in 2000, our accomplishments included the validation of new, real-time, technology-driven traffic management and traveler information systems. Building on that success, AZTech is now a permanent, regionally integrated, traffic data sharing partnership. The "Center-to-Center System" — whereby traffic management tools and information are shared among traffic and emergency management agencies in real time — has become the central data-sharing system. This system makes it possible for AZTech to reach the goals it envisioned from the beginning.
