The Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) has awarded roadway intelligence specialist Rekor Systems a multi-year state-wide contract to implement an incident management and situational awareness platform. The eight-figure blanket purchase order pre-authorises all TxDOT metropolitan, urban, and rural districts to adopt the technology immediately.

The award approves the implementation of Rekor Command, the company’s incident management and situational awareness platform.

Texas operates the largest state-maintained roadway network in the United States, with over 80,000 miles of highways. Population growth and accelerating traffic volumes are pressuring TxDOT to enhance roadway operations, reduce congestion, and improve safety outcomes.

TxDOT Director of Strategy and Innovation Darran Anderson said, “We look forward to continuing our partnership with Rekor to expand the deployment and use of advanced roadway insights powered by big data and intelligent systems to help address safety and congestion across Texas.”

Rekor Command has already been implemented in the TxDOT Austin District. The Austin deployment has undergone an extended evaluation. This showed operational improvements including: 159% increase in incident detection; 8.4-minute reduction in median incident detection time; 83% incident detection accuracy; 44-minute reduction in incident clearance time; and a 29% reduction in secondary crashes.

“We are pleased to advance AI for traffic management in collaboration with Rekor and to build on the significant work we have accomplished. We look forward to implementing enhancements to further improve incident response, mobility, and, most importantly, save lives. The application of AI continues to evolve our operational practices with the impactful efficiencies provided by the Rekor platform,” said Mike Arellano, TxDOT Austin District Deputy Engineer.

“The headline here is simple: Rekor was carefully chosen by TxDOT after a rigorous and competitive process because our technology has delivered measurable results,” said Paul-Matthew Zamsky, General Manager, Rekor Command®. “This blanket purchase order allows all urban and rural TxDOT districts to deploy Rekor Command® immediately. With Texas operating the largest roadway network in the United States, Rekor Command® brings scalable, real-time roadway intelligence that integrates seamlessly with virtually any Advanced Traffic Management System (ATMS) nationally and worldwide.”

Rekor Command unifies disparate data sources into a single, AI-powered platform that enhances situational awareness, supports faster decision-making, and improves resource allocation.

Under the new contract, TxDOT will deploy several new features. These include:

• Traffic Impact Module: a decision support tool that uses AI to assess and visualise how incidents affect traffic flow in real-time and provide real-time insights to operators for proactive and strategic operations, faster response times, and improved traffic safety, ultimately enhancing overall network performance.
• Work Zone API: real-time insights into work zone activity, improving visibility for TxDOT operators and the public.
• Integration with the USDOT FHWA’s Work Zone Data Exchange (WZDx), enabling standardised, open data sharing across local and national systems to support broader safety and mobility goals.

Rekor Command will serve as the data backbone for TxDOT’s Construction Partnership Programme (CPP), a data layer for improving regional collaboration, public communication, and traffic management.