ATSSA Signal November December 2020

The Signal | November/December 2020 39 Member Engagement Send your suggestions to communications@atssa.com for people to interview and questions to ask for future installments of Transportation Conversations. Q: What does your state do to promote work zone safety? A: Caltrans’ highest priority is safety. Our employees repair andmaintain Cali- fornia’s 205,000 culverts and drainage systems, 50,000 highway lane miles, 30,000 acres of roadside landscap - ing, 12,000 bridges, and 87 roadside rest areas. The department continues to increase its efforts to make highway work areas safer for maintenance crews, high- way workers, and the traveling public. Caltrans is focused on educating motor- ists about safe driving in and around work zones. A Caltrans work zone is typically marked by signs, cones, barrels, channeling devices, barriers, pavement markings, and work vehicles. Zones extend from the first warning sign or flashing lights on a vehicle to the “End of Road Work” sign or last traffic control device. Highway construction andmaintenance is one of the most dangerous jobs in California. Our highway workers are relied upon to do more than just fix our roadways; their families count on them to return home safely each day. The “Be Work Zone Alert” campaign highlights their personal relationships by featur- ing the children of Caltrans workers. In 2018 and 2020, we convened a Work Zone Safety Summit withdozens of repre- sentatives from the construction indus- try, the California Highway Patrol, and Caltrans leaders. We held workshops to discuss best practices and identify areas of potential improvement. Since then, the Caltrans team has worked diligently to implement new policies and practices. Changes include reduc- ing the speed limit by 10 mph in work zones, adding speed-feedback signs for traveler awareness, improving the use of highway patrol personnel at work zones, adding buffer lanes to certain work zones to further separate traffic from the workers, implementing auto- mated flagger systems for one-way traf - fic control and adding lighting, revisiting incentives for contractor safety certifi - cations, and adjusting the lane closure hours to allow more time or space to conduct the work over fewer days. Q: What technological innovations do you see impacting your state? A: Caltrans encourages innovation and intelligent risk-taking and established a Division of Research Innovation and System Innovation (DRISI). Caltrans has invested in the area of connected and automated vehicles (CAVs). These vehicles have great poten- tial for reducing traffic accidents and improving the efficiency of transpor - tation systems. The centerpiece of the CAV technology is the creation of a test-bed consisting of 31 consecutive connected intersections. This state- of-the-art test bed broadcasts Signal Phase and Timing (SPaT), Geometric Intersection Description (GID), and High Accuracy GPS messages. These systems work in tandem to exchange information between the Infrastruc- ture Owner/Operator (IOO) and the people who travel along such infra- structures. The information commu- nicated by this technology provides many benefits to the IOO and travel - ers. Avoiding collisions, conserving fuel, and reducing hard brake usage are just a few of the advantages gained from such technology. SPaT has the capac- ity to share how much time is going to elapse before an upcoming traffic signal moves from green to red. The GID can transmit specific details to a vehicle about an upcoming turn lane or the location of the stop bar at an intersection. This test bed is also capa- ble of accepting Basic Safety Messages (BSM) from approaching vehicles such as alerting a driver in the instance of a red light violation. Caltrans devel- oped CAV applications consisting of Multi-Modal Intelligent Traffic Signal System (MMITSS) functions, including connected vehicle-based traffic signal control and signal priority for transit, freight, and pedestrians as well as envi- ronmentally friendly driving. The department broke new ground with our Caltrans Responder system. This is a communication tool for those responding to incidents to allow photo- graphs, drawings, weather informa- tion, incident information, and maps to be shared between responders and a Transportation Management Center (TMC), public information offi - cer, outside agencies and others during an incident via WiFi, cellular, satellite, or other communication method. This information is critical for Caltrans maintenance staff—often first on the scene—to determine the appropriate response and manage resources at the scene. After a successful demonstra- tion of the responder system, Caltrans is transitioning the responder prototype from research to a vendor to enhance, upgrade, and deploy the system. Q: What do you consider the most significant transportation infra- structure changes over the last decade, and what do you expect in the future? A: Two of the most significant infra - structure policy changes over the past 10 years are the implementation of Asset Management and our greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction efforts. With signifi - cantly less money being spent on widen- ing freeways, the focus for funding will likely shift to non-highway modes of transportation (rail, transit, shared- use vehicles, and walking). Upcoming changes will be facilitated with a stable, predictable federal transportation bill. If we are unable to depend on federal funding and connected infrastructure, we are faced with more challenges regarding planning. Anothermeaningful transportation infra- structure change is the CAV test bed I referenced earlier. It not only provides an opportunity for the developers to advance CAV applications in the areas of Infrastructure-to-Vehicle (I2V) and Vehi- cle-to-Infrastructure (V2I) applications, but also allows for the testing of CAV applications by private companies.