May/June 2017

24 American Traffic Safety Services Association INNOVATION NEWS Innovation takes the stage: Latest in industry technology, communication finds home online Outsiders of the transportation infrastructure industry may look to autonomous vehicles as an icon of innovation on the roadways, but for state DOT workers, manufacturers, suppliers and contractors in our industry, innovation is not a stationary achievement. It is much more than a mile marker and not as easily defined. With different perspectives and priorities, industry stakeholders are finding that in addition to new technologies, innovation is heavily reliant on communication between entities. Yes, there are new products being showcased at multiple conventions across the country each year such as MDI Traffic Control Products’ MDI Compact Privacy Screen, which was featured at ATSSA’s latest Convention and Traffic Expo in Phoenix, Arizona. The privacy screen “protects the privacy of victims involved in vehicle crashes, fires and police incidents,” according to the company. But there also are events and workshops, such as the Circle of Innovation, that have been developed to allow public transportation officials from the frontlines a place to vocalize safety or technological needs to industry manufacturers or suppliers. Industry leaders are working together to move forward and ATSSA is no different. The nonprofit recently streamlined its New Programs Department, which is helmed in part by Director of New Programs Brian Watson. One of the latest projects to come out of the New Programs department is innovate.atssa.com, a website that graced the cover of The Signal’s January/February issue and was launched at the 2017 ATSSA Convention and Expo. The website represents the ATSSA Innovation Council, formerly the ITS (intelligent transportation systems) Council. “The main goal was to educate our members but as we continued moving through the site we decided that ‘let’s keep this open to educating the masses’ and that’s one of the main things our Innovation Council tries to do, is find the parallels between the infrastructure side and the advent of the rollout of connected automated vehicles,” Watson said. “If our information is out there and we can guide people to our website to show them what we do and how our products would potentially interact with other emerging technologies, this would be the place that we’re doing it.” The ATSSA-run website highlights the groundwork being laid in three subcommittees: work zone ITS, vehicle-to-everything technologies (V2X) and the Circle of Innovation. There also is a listing of advancements by state. Visitors to the site can read about the Illinois DOT’s Advancement of Automated Vehicle Technology or the Minnesota DOT’s commissioning of the University of Minnesota “to conduct research on Downstream Speed Notifications.” But Watson said at its purest level, the website is an educational tool. “Everyone’s learning concurrently with the new technology that’s coming out … what we’re trying to do is just educate everyone on what our members are doing, what’s going on in the industry and try to correlate that with what could happen a few years down the road,” Watson said. Another feature of the website that highlights new technologies and industry news is a blog, which is frequented by Joe Jeffrey, founder of Road-Tech Safety Services Inc., a company that specializes in traffic control equipment and contracting in Sacramento, Calif. “New people are coming into this business every day and there are lots of ATSSA members who are in the barricade business or something similar and they’re thinking ‘Oh yea, I’m kind of interested in this new stuff and I want to find out more about it, where do I find it out?’ We’re trying to get that information there for them so they can begin to see what we’re talking about, learn the basics and start to figure out where their place is in that business,” Jeffrey said. “[The blog is] an opportunity for everybody to get that conversation going and get us all talking about where we see this going and staking out our part of that road. There really isn’t anybody else going after that.” Connecting work zone and infrastructure with drivers As Jeffrey will tell you, “[Road-Tech Safety’s] first love has always been work zone ITS,” so it’s no surprise he has emerged as an expert on work zone ITS technology and was an initial contributor to the ATSSA website blog, with posts covering subjects like smart work zones and data sharing devices. According to the Federal Highway Administration, ITS gather traffic information (volumes, speeds, video) via sensors or other field components, use wireless or wired communications links to send that data to software for analyzation and then transmit that analyzed data to electronic equipment visible to motorists and other agencies. “Wireless systems warn people of work zone conditions. Rather than just putting up a message board saying ‘roadwork ahead, use caution’ or something like that, we’re putting up something that specifically says ‘traffic stopped at [location], prepare to stop’ and then we’re telling them travel time the rest of the time and then nothing else the rest of the time so they respect those messages and know that if it says it’s slow or it’s stopped, it will be,” Jeffrey said. “That’s how you get a lot better response to [those messages].” To deliver those messages, Jeffrey said manufacturers of traffic control products are making their products smarter. Manufacturers like iCone Products, which created the iCone traffic beacon, a “device that beams real-time traffic information over the Internet to a central web site for use by government officials, emergency response personnel, trucking fleets, the public and information re-sellers,