Figure 36: Accident involving IPV of the Virginia DOT [92

Figure 36: Accident involving IPV of the Virginia DOT [92]

A news article from PennDOT informs that The Department has hundreds of IPVs (over 60 attenuators mounted on trucks and over 300 on trailers in 2018) within its fleet in a variety of configurations: Truck Mounted, Scorpion Trailer Attenuator, and VORTEQ Trailer Attenuator [93]. Road crews prefer the attachable trailer attenuators because of the convenience of connecting the attenuator to any PennDOT dump truck with a trailer hitch. The truck mounted attenuators require a dedicated mounting structure be affixed to a truck taking several employees to attach and remove the attenuator from the truck which makes it a less popular solution.

A PennDOT and Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission Request for Information for Highly Automated Work Zone Vehicles from 2019 informs that since 2015, the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission has experienced over 90 truck mounted attenuator (TMA) crashes along the Pennsylvania Turnpike. In 2017, 18 PennDOT owned attenuators were impacted in work zones [94]. These numbers show the extreme risky environment that a IPV driver faces daily at work.

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