Let’s face it: Roadway work zones are hazardous. Although essential to maintaining a modern highway system, road construction endangers motorists who drive through an unfamiliar array of signs, barrels, and lane changes, as well as the workers who build, repair, and maintain in-use highways. Since the turn of the century, the U.S. has improved work-zone safety through comprehensive planning and by using historical accident data to identify and understand hazards. Despite these improvements, more than 40,000 people a year are injured in automotive work zone accidents. According to the Federal Highway Administration approximately 600 people are killed in work zone accidents each
year. And work zones are Steven W. Dellenback, Ph.D., is executive director of the Intelligent ubiquitous, averaging one Systems Department in the Automation and Data Systems Division. every 100 miles in the U.S. He has extensive experience in systems design and integration, Because more than computer graphics, operating systems, and programming languages. His department performs research in automated vehicles, cooperative 30 percent of crashes vehicle systems, active safety systems, transportation systems, data in mobile or static work analytics, and cybersecurity, among others. zones involve drivers hitting the last vehicle, work zones are often protected by “safety trucks.” These trucks have crash-absorbing mechanisms Enhancing work zone safety with attached at the rear designed to absorb connected automation the impact of a vehicle and stop it before it can hit the work crew. While these For more than a decade, automation engineers at Southwest Research Institute crashes are dangerous for the drivers of the safety truck and the vehicle hitting it, (SwRI) have performed more than $50 milthe situation has lower risk of catastrophe lion worth of research and development related to connected-vehicle and autothan a vehicle entering a work zone with multiple, unprotected workers on the mated-vehicle technologies for commercial, military, and state and federal clients. ground.
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An automated truck-mounted attenuator not only removes the driver from a vulnerable position, but also helps avoid the traffic hazards a driver faces getting in and out of the cab to reposition the truck as the work convoy moves down the road.
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Technology Today • Fall 2015
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By Steven W. Dellenback, Ph.D.
