State officials are accelerating toward one of the largest “smart highway” corridors in the world, starting with I-94 and I-696 in southeast Michigan.

According to the Michigan Department of Transportation, high-tech vehicle-to-infrastructure equipment will eventually be deployed on a 120-mile loop of highway throughout the tri-county area.

The technology, financed in part with federal dollars, relies upon cameras and wireless centers along the highway that communicate with cars equipped with similar gadgets. This “V2I” technology, which relies upon a network of fiber optics, warns cars of road conditions and potential hazards, according to MDOT’s Rob Morosi.

Ultimately, smart highways can convey data to cars and autonomously slow or stop vehicles that are headed for a collision. The U.S. Department of Transportation, which has extensively researched V2I, has indicated that thousands of fatal crashes each year are the result of roadway designs and cars entering or exiting a highway.

MLive reported that the primary stretch being equipped consists of I-96 and I-696 from US-23 in Brighton to I-94 in St. Clair Shores. MDOT officials have said the area was selected to be the region’s first “connected corridor” because it has some of the heaviest traffic volumes.

Though only 15 miles, in Oakland County, have been fully installed, Morosi indicated that another 28 miles on I-696 from I-275 to I-94 and 88 miles on I-94 from Washtenaw County to the Blue Water Bridge in Port Huron is in the works. Completion of the 120-mile loop is anticipated in 2017.

The project is a collaboration between General Motors, Ford Motor Co., the University of Michigan and MDOT.

The nonprofit group Transportation For America, a leading advocate of federal funding for smart highways, said last year that the technology would “make more efficient use of our transportation system, while improving safety.”

V2I corridor

The long-term smart highway corridor