2021 02 17 Worker Presence Subgroup meeting #4

February 17, 2021

Participants

• Arizona DOT – Adam Carreon
• Booz Allen – Mahsa Ettefagh
• Castle Rock Associates – Kristin Virshbo*
• General Motors – David Craig**
• GEWI North America – Eli Sherer
• HERE Technologies – Jingwei Xu
• HERE Technologies – Weimin Huang
• IBI Group – Michelle Boucher
• Iowa DOT – Daniel Sprengeler
• Iowa DOT – Sinclair Stolle
• Maryland DOT – Hua Xiang
• Massachusetts DOT – Neil Boudreau
• Minnesota DOT – Ted Ulven
• Panasonic – Lauren Cordova
• Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada – Eneliko Mulokozi
• USDOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics – Kenneth Steve
• USDOT Federal Highway Administration – Martha Kapitanov
• USDOT Federal Highway Administration – Todd Peterson
• USDOT Volpe Center – Nate Deshmukh Towery**
• USDOT Volpe Center – Mark Mockett
• USDOT Volpe Center – Molly Behan
• USDOT Volpe Center – Wes Alford
• Ver-Mac – Serge Beaudry*
• Washington State DOT – Tony Leingang

*Worker Presence Subgroup co-chair
**Work Zone Data Working Group co-chair

Purpose

• Review the purpose, scope, and activities of the Worker Presence Subgroup.
• Discuss next steps for achieving the Subgroup's mission to advocate for publishing and using worker presence information in WZDx feeds.

Agenda

• Survey Report Update
• Accomplishments & Retrospective
• Future Priorities
• Discussion

Notes

Intro and agenda (Nate)

Overview of original subgroup charter (Kristin Virshbo)

• Goal: Be the lead steward in accelerating the inclusion of real time worker presence information in WZDx feeds
• Why WP?
  • Improve worker safety
  • Alert drivers to reduce speed
  • Alert ADS that humans are present
  • Potential WZDx data user have said this is important
• Scope:
  • Review current definitions of worker presence
  • Existing means of collecting worker presence
  • Identify methods for identifying workers that are onsite
  • What data user requirements exist
  • Explore with data producers if there was privacy, ethical, liability, or competitiveness concerns with providing this data
• Approach
  • Survey to understand from different stakeholder perspectives on WP (done)
  • Interview data consumers (not done)
  • Review and synthesize the results (done)
  • Make recommendations for WZDx spec changes (not done)

Discussing future priorities (Serge Beaudry)

• Elements from original charter to continue working on
  • Review more about how state/local jurisdictions define worker presence and align on common terminology
  • Engage with more data producers and users to better understand needs and capabilities to refine results from the survey
• New elements to consider
  • Work with Specification Update Subgroup and proposed Smart Work Zone Subgroup to help capture and deliver worker presence information
  • Work with WZDx Demonstration Grant awardees that have a goal of providing worker presence information to understand their approach and needs for worker presence
  • Collaborate with FHWA’s “Put Work Zones on the Map” awareness campaign to help educate more work zone stakeholders about the importance of worker presence information

Discussion

• Prompts:
  • Are these topics worth exploring?
  • Are these topics the right priority?
  • Is there an idea or area the the subgroup should focus on that has not been proposed?
• Praveen Edara: In addition to worker presence, is there any consideration to include TMA-related information?
  • Serge: That should fall under worker presence as well, should fall under yes for worker presence, but we'll need to consider it
• Adam Carreon: A definition is extremely important, want to make sure that it's defined so that we can try to be consistent across the country.
• Tony Leingang: Washington State is testing worker presence with our Incident Response Team with a series of technology
• Ted Ulven: In Minnesota, we define worker presence as workers separated from traffic by 12 ft or less
• Neil Boudreau: One of the things we'd been advancing as part of our application was to form a subgroup to advance smart work zone data - capturing and pushing out data in a common format. Group hasn’t formally launched yet.
  • Serge: SWZ is generally related to travel times and other updated information. Reducing speed limits means that workers are present, which is synergy with this subgroup.
  • Kristin: There are good tie ins with the conversation about data consumers: what can a smart work zone tell us about itself and what do data consumers find most valuable about that?
  • Neil: Massachusetts just passed a variable speed limit zone. Smart device out in the field can be coupled with info about where work zone is and then trigger that speed limit provider.
• David Rush: We have had workers struck behind barrier walls, and delivery trucks might enter/exit behind barrier walls - looking at worker exposure.
  • Serge: We heard some of those issues in the survey responses.
• Weimin Huang: HERE would like to incorporate WP info into our data systems
• Praveen: This is not as much an issue with worker presence data collection but with data sharing. Are they any unintended consequences with sharing worker presence data with motorists (as traveler information)? Will they not pay as much attention if workers are not present?
  • Kristin: How folks change their behavior with information that wasn't there before, and whether it's beneficial, are some major questions that will be with us as we move forward
• Several demonstration grant awardees are happy to share their experiences implementing worker presence
• Education and working with “Put Work Zones on the Map” campaign is a lower priority

Next Steps

• WP co-chairs will present survey results to the semi-annual meeting in March
• WZDWG will vote on re-chartering this subgroup