Overview
The North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT) manages the second-largest roadway network in the U.S., coordinating traffic operations across 14 divisions through a Statewide Transportation Operations Center (STOC) and five regional Traffic Management Centers (TMCs). To harmonize these centers, NCDOT built interoperability into its everyday operations — shared Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) platforms, a single firm managing and staffing all centers, standardized training, and cloud-based phone and contact systems that let any center cover for another. This redundancy has held up under real-world tests: When Hurricane Helene forced the evacuation of the Mountain TMC in September 2024, its responsibilities transferred seamlessly to the STOC with no interruption to monitoring, incident response, or public communication, and the same design kept operations running during a month-long STOC control-room renovation in late 2025. Together these capabilities strengthen NCDOT's operational consistency, staff flexibility, and public safety across the state.
In this case study you will learn:
- How NCDOT designed interoperability across its STOC and five regional TMCs so any center can assume another's operations.
- Why standardized management, training, and shared technology platforms are the foundation of reliable multi-center coordination.
- How built-in redundancy kept traffic operations uninterrupted during the Hurricane Helene evacuation and a month-long control-room renovation.