National Contest Challenges Transportation Students to Improve Roadway Safety

The American Traffic Safety Services Association (ATSSA) has announced the “Traffic Control Device Challenge” in partnership with the Transportation Research Board (TRB), a program unit of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine. The challenge will focus on how America’s roadway system must change to accommodate both human and “machine” drivers.  The challenge is designed to promote innovation and stimulate ideas regarding traffic control devices with a goal to improve safety on the nation’s roadways.  Eligible participants are individual high school, community college, college, graduate students and teams of students with an interest in transportation.

“As we see connected and automated vehicles become a reality, we need to keep in mind that there will be a mix of human and machine drivers for some time to come. It will take time to turn over our nationwide fleet of vehicles and even more advances in technology will be made. We need to plan to keep all vehicles and drivers safe. Our goal is zero fatalities on our nation’s roadways,” said ATSSA Chairwoman Debra Ricker.

Submissions to the contest must be an original design or modification of an industry-accepted design or product. A special panel of TRB experts will then judge entries based on the ability of the idea to address a specific roadway problem, how easily it can be understood by all road users, its applicability on a nationwide basis and its feasibility for implementation.

Up to 12 finalists will be invited to display their ideas at the TRB 96th Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C., Jan. 8-12, 2017.  From those, first, second and third place winners will be selected to present their concepts to the roadway safety industry at ATSSA’s 47th Annual Convention & Traffic Expo in Phoenix, Arizona, February 12-14, 2017.

“We’re really looking forward to working with ATSSA to generate new ideas to make our roadways safe and efficient for a mix of today’s vehicles and the automated vehicle of the near future,” said Dr. Paul Carlson, of the Texas A&M Transportation Institute. Carlson chairs TRB’s Standing Committee on Traffic Control Devices where the TCD Challenge idea originated.

Interested students who wish to participate can find an application packet at expo.atssa.com/devicechallenge.html.