WZDWG Meeting Notes, 2020 08 05

Virtual Attendees

• Nate Deshmukh Towery (USDOT)
• Eric Ricciardi - Booz Allen Hamilton
• Serge Beaudry-Ver-Mac
• Derald Dudley (USDOT-BTS & FGDC)
• Kristin Virshbo, castle Rock Associates
• Mark Mockett, USDOT Volpe Center
• Ariel Gold - USDOT
• Dave Craig with GM
• Ross Sheckler - iCone
• Tony English (Neaera)
• Jacob Frye (Neaera)
• Armando Lopez - US Postal Service - Digital Business
• Pier Castonguay - Ver-Mac
• Jacob Brady (IBI Group)
• Mahsa Ettefagh (Booz Allen Hamilton)
• Skylar Knickerbocker - Iowa State University
• Rachel Ostroff, ICF
• Justin Anderson - Noblis
• Lauren Cordova - Panasonic
• Polly Okunieff (ICF)
• Chuck Felice (UDOT)
• Ashley Nylen (CDOT)
• Carole Delion, Maryland DOT SHA
• Erin Schoon WisDOT
• Phil Bobitz, FHWA Office of Safety
• Marysa Myers Uber ATG
• Vince Garcia - Wyomng DOT
• Jim WIlliams - INRIX
• Kellen Shain (Noblis)
• Jingwei Xu - HERE
• Erik Davis (TomTom)
• Shane Zumpf (Trihydro)
• Jeremy Agulnek - HAAS Alert
• Craig Moore, Seattle DOT
• Joseph Kuenzi (ODOT)
• Tony Leingang - WSDOT
• Alex Demisch, San Francisco MTA
• Paul Pisano (TRB & P. Pisano LLC)
• Luke Urie - Austin Transportation Department
• Sabrina Mosher - Southwest Research Institute
• Charles Meyer CO DOT
• Hua Xiang, Maryland DOT
• Katie Blizzard, Leidos
• Maaza Mekuria, HI DOT
• Mikel Maron from Mapbox
• Tom Phillips, Q-Free
• Sudhakar Nallamothu, Leidos
• Mariah Lynch, Castle Rock ITS
• Meredith Nelson - MI DOT
• Jianming Ma, Texas DOT
• Valerie Shuman - SCG for ICF
• Kenneth Steve - BTS
• Wei Zhang from FHWA Office of Safety and Operations
• Carlos Alban, ITS America
• Abdul Zineddin (FHWA, Safety)
• Kelly Wells, NCDOT
• Molly Behan (Volpe)
• Wesley Alford USDOT Volpe Center
• Michael Hanowsky (Woolpert)
• Rashmi Brewer, MnDOT
• Brian Simi (CADOT - Caltrans - Research)
• Dan Sprengeler Iowa DOT
• Karina Ricks - Pittsburgh Mobility and Infrastructure
• Curtis Hay, General Motors
• Sam Krassenstein (City of Detroit)
• Kenneth Steve - U.S. DOT
• Jonny Morris w/ Embark
• Steve Sill (US DOT ITS JPO)
• Mike Meeks Ohio DOT
• Yang Cheng - Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison
• Sinclair Stolle, Iowa DOT
• Faisal Saleem: Faisal Saleem, MCDOT
• Adam Arizona DOT: Adam Carreon Arizona DOT
• Daniel Farley - PennDOT
• Drew Clark - Kentucky DOT
• Kali Fogel RIITS

Slides from this meeting are available here

Purpose:

• Provide updates on WZDx/WZDWG Subgroups progress in working towards WZDx v3 publication over the past six months
• Facilitate discussion on the longer-term goals and vision of the WZDWG
• Learn about other work zone-related USDOT efforts

Intended Outcomes:

• Review proposed changes for inclusion in v3 of the WZDx Specification
• Solicit interest in Subgroups and Co-Chairs for the next specification development cycle

Agenda

• Sign in and Welcome
• V3 Specification Update Subgroup Report-Out –v3 Subgroup Co-Chairs
• Worker Presence Subgroup Report-Out –WP Subgroup Co-Chairs
• Technical Assistance Subgroup Report-Out –TA Subgroup Co-Chairs
• Near-Term Action Items for the WZDWG –WZDWG Co-Chairs
• Discussion on the Longer-Term Vision of the WZDWG –WZDWG Co-Chairs
• WZDx Demonstration Grants –FHWA
• Other Work Zone Related USDOT Projects –USDOT/FHWA
• Announcements & Next Steps –WZDWG Co-Chairs

Discussion Summary

• v3 Specification Update Subgroup Report Out

  • Subgroup Co-Chairs covered the following finalized pull requests to WZDWG members to vote on for inclusion in next version of WZDx Spec.
    • PR #87-Require restriction_type for a lane_restriction
    • PR #88–Change Time and Spatial Verification Enumerated Type Values to be Lowercase
    • PR #89–Require major.minor Format for road_event_feed_info version Field
    • PR #94–Part 1 –Clarify Usage of Lanes Table and Clean Up Lane Types
    • PR #94–Part 2 –Add order property to the lane entity to indicate position/index
    • PR #94–Part 3 –Standardize lane counting to begin from the left side of the roadway
    • PR#117–Update Metadata to Allow Multiple Sources and Include Info Directly in the Feed, Rather than an External File
    • PR#118 -Replace the Subidentifier Field with a Relationship Object
    • PR#119-Update road_events.md with event type (Detours)
  • co-chairs proposed rechartering of this subgroup for another 6-month development cycle
  • action items:
    • Go vote on these PRs for inclusion in v3 in the forthcoming SurveyMonkey survey (will have 10 business days for voting once the survey goes out)
  • Questions:
    • Chuck Felice - Can a status for a lane closure in a WZDx feed be labeled as an accident? In Utah, we have incident management trucks on our freeways that assist Utah Highway Patrol personnel with lane closures due to traffic accidents. Often, these lane closures can last for several hours until the accident is cleared. In these situations, accidents areas are affecting traffic just like a work zone will.
    • Derald - Adopting the event type will enable categorizing road events as emergency response.
    • Jacob - Yes, it's on the road event level, rather than the lane level
    • Valerie - this gets squarely into the realm of traveler information - for which there are a lot of existing specs Consider SAE's TIM, J2735 elements, etc.
    • Kelly, NCDOT: Just FYI - In our state we have gone away from the word "accident" and gone to "crash". I think this is the trend in the highway safety community.

• Worker Presence Subgroup

  • The Worker Presence Subgroup is conducting a survey about work zone activity data, with a focus on Worker Presence. Questions are grouped into four tracks by audience:
    • Track A: Infrastructure Owners / Operators
    • Track B: Work Zone Equipment Providers
    • Track C: Work Zone Workers
    • Track D: Data Consumers
  • Deadline for submitting survey is extended to Aug 21, 2020
  • co-chairs proposed rechartering of this subgroup for another 6-month development cycle
  • Workers presence’ inclusion in work zone inspired a lot of discussion in the chat pod with different ideas on how to address their inclusion/the necessity (or lack thereof) to note their inclusion, etc.
  • The group made it clear that there is a need to fine-tune the description of “worker presence” since it’s so relative to difference audiences
  • Questions:
    • Maaza (HI DOT) - Since the presence of a worker is a privacy issue (specific to a jurisdiction), what the underlyign need to know whether there is a human presence in the closure?
    • Adam (Arizona DOT) – they are not accidents, they are crashes
    • Dan (Iowa DOT) – Iowa uses “crash” rather than “accident” *Derald suggested starting a discussion topic around this issue

• Technical Assistance Subgroup

  • Technical Assistance Forum on GitHub has been established
  • “Help Desk” for WZDx Technical Assistance has been established
  • Early Adopter Implementation Guides
    • Conduct initial interviews with early adopters to create a draft implementation use case for 1-3 data producers.
    • Identify format for delivering step-by-step implementation use cases, with input from subgroup members.
    • Implementation use cases will be made available through the WZDx Github repository
  • co-chairs proposed rechartering of this subgroup for another 6-month development cycle
  • Subgroup could use more Co-Chairs and membership/volunteers
    • Ross Sheckler would like to help with the HelpDesk

• Near-Term Action Items for the WZDWG

  • WZDWG-Related: Call for Co-Chair volunteers to help lead the WZDWG –email avdx@dot.govwith your interest by August 15.
  • Subgroup-Related: Call for Co-Chair volunteers to lead each of the Subgroups –email avdx@got.govwith your interest by August 15.
  • Co-Chair nominations (minimum of 2, maximum of 4 per Subgroup) -looking for data producer and data user representatives (by 8/15) Upcoming Voting
  • Express your interest in being a member of any/all the Subgroups in the post-meeting email (forthcoming by end of this week).
  • Review the proposed amendments to existing Subgroups’ charters in an end-of-August survey.
  • Participate in the Worker Presence Survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/TVLT8GK
  • For additional details on the survey and promotional language, please refer to the appendix at the end of this slide deck.
    • Michelle Boucher: Additional subgroup suggestion? Consider creating a subgroup for smart work zone data "smart data" to define field device information and traffic metric data for inclusion in the WZDx specification.

• Long-Term Governance for the WZDWG

  • There is a need to find a longer-term home for the WZDWG and respective WZDx Specification
  • Exploring options for increasing the SDO community’s role in specification governance and adoption
  • will discuss more during the next semi-annual WZDWG meeting

• Work Zone Data Exchange Demonstration Grants updates were given. More information to come.

• WZDI updates were give with resources: https://collaboration.fhwa.dot.gov/wzmp/wzdi/Forms/AllItems.aspx

• V2X mapping tool demonstration - https://github.com/TonyEnglish/V2X-manual-data-collection

  • Does this tool feed back into a WZDx Specification database? - It goes back to the cloud, not an issue to reroute to a database
  • Is there a POC V2X hub that I could tie existing RSUs into? Yes – Sudhakar posted the link to the V2X GitHub
  • Ariel Gold - We continue to register/share DOT-funded ITS software at https://its.dot.gov/code/. You can find these and other open source projects of interest.
  • Kristin Virshbo: Where would you suggest newbies begin who are interested in using this tool, as a first step?
  • Ted Sadler: I've seen the repo and attempted to build it in-house but have had issues - Sudhakar Nallamothu: WE can help you with that. Please reach out to us at CAVSupportServices@dot.gov.

• CARMA updates - https://highways.dot.gov/research/research-programs/operations/CARMA

• Automated Driving Systems (ADS) Operational Behavior and Traffic Regulation Information updates were given

  • Kali Fogel: Is there a future desire to use something that already exists like open streets or open maps to maintain the repository? Will the regulation information include local traffic plans for their regulatory information like truck routes within their cities?
  • Maaza (HI DOT): A lot of things are still in the ethereal sphere. There are things that are still fuzzy to me when it comes to privacy, liability and ownership on such items are machines and human interactions. Are we going to discuss these or leave it to others to say what is appropriate or not?

• Put Workers on the Map Campaign

  • A 12-month strategic communications partnership and awareness campaign to Put Workers on the Map
  • Public launch in Fall 2020 with major public relations activity around National Work Zone Awareness Week 2021 to highlight the value of WZDx and the potential to save lives
  • Objective: Public commitments of specification support and adoption from construction companies, IOOs, and others

• WZDx Feed Registry

  • The WZDx Feed Registryfunctions as a centralized listing of publicly available WZDx feeds.
  • All public feeds are welcome and only nine pieces of metadata information are needed to be listed.
  • Contact Ariel & Nate to have your feed added.

• Retrospective on Meeting:

  • Kali Fogel: Make it shorter.
  • Kelly Wells, NCDOT: 10 minute breaks were great
  • Jeremy Agulnek (HAAS Alert): A case study would be great
  • Valerie Shuman - SCG for ICF: allow us to see the participants list, and allow chatting among participants (in addition to chat to whole group)
  • Joshua Hudson - WSDOT: Will the recording be shared?
  • Kali Fogel: Several days would have allowed me to absorb all the information.
  • Rashmi Brewer, MnDOT CAV-X: allow a download of the presentation at the beginning of the webinar to help with note taking
  • Mahsa Ettefagh (Booz Allen Hamilton): yes recording will be posted on GitHub Wiki - https://github.com/usdot-jpo-ode/jpo-wzdx/wiki
  • Mahsa Ettefagh (Booz Allen Hamilton): presentation is attached to the calendar invite
  • Kali Fogel: Bring the consumers of the data to show what they are doing to give them an incentive to participate.
  • Maaza (HI DOT): make chat history available.
  • Ariel Gold (USDOT): I do see some more consumers in attendance if you'd like to say hi :-)
  • Maaza (HI DOT): Adobe clears the history in the middle.

• Action Items and Next Steps:

  • Post-Meeting email will go out by end of week reiterating all the action items from today
  • Review pull requests and cast your “yes/no/neutral” vote via SurveyMonkey link (will be sent out to voting members) within the allocated timeline.
  • Express your interest in being an active member of any of the Subgroups by filling out SurveyMonkey that will be included in the post-meeting email.
  • Nominate yourself/others to be WZDWG or Subgroup Co-Chairs by emailing avdx@dot.govby August 15th.

• Chat Pod History

  • Mahsa Ettefagh (Booz Allen Hamilton): These pull requests are available on: https://github.com/usdot-jpo-ode/jpo-wzdx/pulls
  • Chuck Felice (UDOT): Question for the WZDx Specification Subgroup: Can a status for a lane closure in a WZDx feed be labeled as an accident? In Utah, we have incident management trucks on our freeways that assist Utah Highway Patrol personnel with lane closures due to traffic accidents. Often, these lane closures can last for several hours until the accident is cleared. In these situations accidents areas are affecting traffic just like a work zone will.
  • Ariel Gold (USDOT): As a reminder, we have prioritized worker presence information in part based on interest from data consumers (incl. ADS developers) who say it is needed. Please help us flesh out the needs via this survey!
  • Mark Mockett (USDOT Volpe Center): If you haven't taken the survey, here's the link:
  • Mark Mockett (USDOT Volpe Center): https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/TVLT8GK
  • Meredith Nelson - MDOT: What is the deadline for the survey?
  • Ariel Gold (USDOT): It was Aug 7 but we are extending - will clarify in a moment
  • Nate Deshmukh Towery (USDOT): The survey will close on 8/21
  • Meredith Nelson - MDOT: And it is the same link for each trck, correct?
  • Mark Mockett (USDOT Volpe Center): Yes, that's correct
  • Derald Dudley (USDOT-BTS & FGDC): @Chuck - Adopting the event type will enable categorizing road events as emergency response.
  • Jacob Brady: Yeah, it's on the road event level, rather than the lane level
  • Jacob Brady: but not yet in v3.0
  • Valerie Shuman - SCG for ICF: this gets squarely into the realm of traveler inforamtion - for which there are a lot of existing specs
  • David Rush, VDOT: David Rush, VDOT - forgot to sign in at the beginning
  • Kelly Wells, NCDOT: Just FYI: In our state we have gone away from the word "accident" and gone to "crash". I think this is the trend in the highway safety community.
  • Maaza (HI DOT): Since the presence of a worker is a privacy issue (specific to a jurisdiction), what the underlyign need to know whether there is a human presence in the closure?
  • Adam Arizona DOT: they are not accidents, they are crashes.
  • Derald Dudley (USDOT-BTS & FGDC): Shall we start a discussion topic? https://github.com/usdot-jpo-ode/jpo-wzdx/discussions
  • Daniel Sprengeler: Iowa uses "crash" rather than "accident"
  • Derald Dudley (USDOT-BTS & FGDC): im on board with all of it. Establish a Crash Road Event which relies on established specs
  • Valerie Shuman - SCG for ICF: Consider SAE's TIM, J2735 elements, etc.
  • Adam Arizona DOT: it’s important to know if workers are present if they are exposed to traffic. if they are protected behind barrier wall, it is not as much of a concern (in my humble opinion)
  • Daniel Sprengeler: When I completed the survey, I did not say that workers were present just because there was a barrier present. Maybe there are different exposures levels to consider e.g with or without positive protection
  • Tony English (Neaera): @Adam, I think if we have really up to date work presnet info yes (like BSM for workers at 10 Hz), other wise i think we may want to error on the side of safety and even if we have a barrier wall announce workers present. Just my 2 cents.
  • Ross Sheckler - iCone: The issue with worker's presence is that it is a legal term for many states affecting fines and speed limits. As an equipment producer it is important for a national standard on the definition of worker present in order to reliably report on it.
  • Daniel Sprengeler: Worker presence is important for traffic exposed to both roadway traffic and contractor equipment.. So we need to fine tune the description of "worker presence."
  • serge beaudry-Ver-Mac: WP description is one of the question in the survey where people can tell if they have one and what it covers.. Answers to that question will greatly define a better definition going forward
  • Kristin Virshbo: Thanks for the great question, Maaza! As Serge says, HOW worker presence data would/could be used is one of the major topics we are exploring in the survey itself. Amongst ourselves, we can imagine/envision several safety and operational improvements that could build on these data, but to start we want to understand that very question from multiple industry perspetives--therefore, the 4 survey tracks.
  • Carole Delion (MDOT SHA): We are! Thank you
  • Hua XIang - Maryland: Yes, Maryland is very grateful to the assistance you provided!
  • Hua XIang - Maryland: We will need more~!
  • Maaza (HI DOT): Hello @Kristin, Thank you for the input. I am thinking through this as well.
  • Ross Sheckler - iCone: I would like to help with the help desk
  • Kristin Virshbo: @Maaza--it would be great to talk more and hear your thoughts., perspectives, and concerns. Please consider getting involved with the WP working group over the next 6 months. And, please do take the survey if you haven't already. :-)
  • Michelle Boucher: Additional subgroup suggestion? Consider creating a subgroup for smart work zone data "smart data" to define field device information and traffic metric data for inclusion in the WZDx specification.
  • Charles Meyer CO DOT: Did the Worker Persence survey get sent to AASHTO? I received it through FHWA but AASHTO would be great reach to state DOTs. I'm glad to do that.
  • Derald Dudley (USDOT-BTS & FGDC): AASHTO has been contacted.
  • Charles Meyer CO DOT: Thumbs up! I'll remind them
  • Maaza (HI DOT): Hello, Michele, thank you for the input. The datasepcification is supposed to be technology neutral?
  • Derald Dudley (USDOT-BTS & FGDC): Ill reach out again and see if theyll push the survey again.
  • Kristin Virshbo: Thanks so much, Charles. Awesome.
  • Ross Sheckler - iCone: @Michelle, can you explain your thoughts on the smart work zone data subgroup? It seems to be a big topic area
  • Michelle Boucher: @maaza this would be technology neutral.
  • Kali Fogel: https://www.oasis-open.org/ is what the MDS is using.
  • Maaza (HI DOT): @michele what is "smart data"?
  • Ross Sheckler - iCone: We have some experience with the issue that Michelle is bringing up. When we started with smart arrow boards we spent more than a year asking for help with what the 'neutral' feed should include. At that time there was no group like this to help define it so we were on our own.
  • Nisar Ahmed (MTC): SDOs may be too much bureaucratic to manage it.
  • Ariel Gold (USDOT): ariel.gold@dot.gov
  • David Craig: david.craig@gm.com
  • Maaza (HI DOT): Data spec is the baseline. Does it matter what type of tech. used to produce it? or do we anticipate pinging and communication with field equipment?
  • Brian Simi - CADOT (Caltrans): ITE may be a good place for standard management.
  • Michelle Boucher: @maaza we have several ideas, an example of smart data would be traffic data from sensors (volume, occupancy, speed).
  • Kali Fogel: Oasis open provides process and management.
  • Ross Sheckler - iCone: The data that is considered 'necessary' drives the design of the equipment. For instance, it is necessary to know if the display on a arrow board is 'up'. We didn't learn that requirement until we got into the field. A group that could define the needed data would help with the technology development.
  • Maaza (HI DOT): @michele how does that figure in WZDx data-feed spec? Is that an external data?
  • Michelle Boucher: @maaza technology agnostic. yes pinging the devices to find out travel time, queue lenth, sign message detail, camera still images..
  • Craig Moore: Open Mobility Foundation is an existing governing body hosted on OASIS and is focused on open source mobility tools. https://www.openmobilityfoundation.org/about/
  • serge beaudry-Ver-Mac: Some smart data could be usefull out of the box for many data consumers. EX: more variable speed sign are used these days in work zones. Knowing in real-time that the speed is now 55 instead of 70 would help mapping companies to route according to that change. Information from sensors, variable message sign could be usefull as well.
  • Tony Leingang: Do you know how many applicants there were for the grants?
  • Ariel Gold (USDOT): we will share more information on the grant program after the procurement is closed, can't answer questions at this time
  • Ariel Gold (USDOT): DOT information on the program will be available at https://www.transportation.gov/av/data/wzdx but also be shared with this group
  • Tony Leingang: Thanks Ariel!
  • Ted Sadler: Where is the best place to access these tools?
  • Mahsa Ettefagh (Booz Allen Hamilton): here is the link to this tool: https://github.com/TonyEnglish/V2X-manual-data-collection
  • Maaza (HI DOT): does configuration creator include an API to auto upload initial config data?
  • Kristin Virshbo: Is there an API (or plans to make one?) for this interface?
  • Ted Sadler: thanks!
  • Deborah Curtis (USDOT): We are currently prioritizing many upgrades/updates to the tool and the API is one we will be sure to consider
  • Ted Sadler: is the intent to drive a work zone repeatedly, or to ingest that updated information from other sources and only verify by driving?
  • Maaza (HI DOT): I think it a very useful tool. It wwill not be too hard to add that. We can do it on our side to take a feed other than what is presently available.
  • Deborah Curtis (USDOT): The intent is to leverage what a project manager already does when they drive the WZ to verify MOT.
  • Deborah Curtis (USDOT): In future interations, we will leverage sensors on equipped vehicles to give us addtional data
  • Faisal Saleem: What GPS accuracy is needed for the vehicle that is driven to record the data?
  • Ted Sadler: thanks Deborah! is it possible to bring that MOT information in from other places? ah ok, the additional vehicles makes sense.
  • Jacob Frye: It depends on the message. Generating an RSM message typically requires a GPS accurate to 1 meter, but to generate a WZDx message the accuracy could be much less
  • Kristin Virshbo: Where would you suggest newbies begin who are interested in using this tool, as a first step?
  • Faisal Saleem: GPS accuracy needs may be atopic for discussion for one of the sub-groups. From our experience it can significantly vary - vehicle speed can also play a role.
  • Maaza (HI DOT): Besides being a python application is there any other technology abrrier to adopt to our needs?
  • Ted Sadler: is the existing POC environment able to tie into currently deployed RSUs? or would I need to build my own from the github?
  • Meredith Nelson - MDOT: does data collected from this tool feed back into a WZDx spec database?
  • Maaza (HI DOT): What about collecting the right after the setup time?
  • Ted Sadler: thanks Deb!
  • Ted Sadler: is there a POC V2X hub that I could tie existing RSUs into?
  • Maaza (HI DOT): He answered the question?
  • Maaza (HI DOT): Yes.
  • Sudhakar Nallamothu: Ted, V2X-Hub is another open source tool that is available on GitHub at https://github.com/usdot-fhwa-OPS/V2X-Hub
  • Ted Sadler: thank you! however I meant currently running...
  • Ted Sadler: I've seen the repo and attempted to build it in-house but have had issues
  • Ariel Gold (USDOT): We continue to register/share DOT-funded ITS software at https://its.dot.gov/code/. You can find these and other open source projects of interest.
  • Maaza (HI DOT): Thank you Tony.
  • Sudhakar Nallamothu: WE can help you with that. Please reach out to us at CAVSupportServices@dot.gov
  • Ariel Gold (USDOT): all these support email addresses go to the same people... :-)
  • Kali Fogel: Is there a future desire to use something that already exists like open streets or open maps to maintain the repository?
  • Kali Fogel: Will the regulation information include local traffic plans for their regulatory information like truck routes within their cities?
  • Maaza (HI DOT): a lot things are still in the ethereal sphere. There are things that are still fuzzy to me when it comes to privacy, liability and ownership on such items are machines and human interactions. Are we going to disucss these or leave it to others to say what is appropriate or not?
  • Kali Fogel: https://www.metro.net/projects/call_projects/cstan/
  • Kelly Wells, NCDOT: who are the "voting members"?
  • Ariel Gold (USDOT): prospective or active data consumers and producers
  • Ariel Gold (USDOT): this is described in the charter -- as an IOO NCDOT has one vote as an org
  • Rashmi Brewer, MnDOT CAV-X: please provide surveymonkey link again
  • David Rush, VDOT: Thanks, very good meeting!
  • Nate Deshmukh Towery (USDOT): https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/TVLT8GK