The Georgia Department of Transportation (Georgia DOT) recently won a 2025 Transportation Systems Management and Operations (TSMO) Award in the category of Cybersecurity for TSMO. The National Operations Center of Excellence (NOCoE) made the announcement during the annual meeting of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) Committee on Transportation System Operations.

Georgia DOT won the award for the department’s deployment of advanced firewalled routers statewide, protecting 8,000+ connected devices from growing cybersecurity threats. 

A new case study outlines how Georgia DOT integrated secure edge devices into traffic systems to reduce the risk of cyberattacks that could disrupt safety-critical operations like signals and ramp meters. Standardized installation procedures and cross-team coordination streamline deployment, saving time and ensuring consistent configurations. 

“Georgia DOT has prioritized security to ensure their traveling public has a safe and reliable road network,” said Nicholas Ramfos, Director of NOCoE. “Their proactive approach protects both infrastructure and public safety, while reducing future costs linked to system breaches, downtime, and emergency responses.”

NOCoE – a partnership between AASHTO, the Institute for Transportation Engineers, and the Intelligent Transportation Society of America, with support from the Federal Highway Administration – holds the yearly awards to promote the value of TSMO, a set of strategies that focus on operational improvements that help to maintain and restore existing transportation system performance without adding extra capacity.

This annual awards program celebrates TSMO strategies and tools that leverage existing infrastructure to increase safety and reliability. Additionally, each year, NOCoE develops case studies for each winning entry as well as for many of the other submissions, which contribute to a library of over 200 TSMO case studies.

NOCoE also named John Hibbard – Deputy Chief Engineer of the Georgia Department of Transportation – as the winner of its 2025 Joey Sagal TSMO Leadership Award. The award honors an individual who has made significant contributions to advancing TSMO both inside their organization and within the industry at-large.