New York launches work zone safety campaign

New York City’s Department of Transportation (DOT) has launched its new and improved Zone Watch program as part of National Work Zone Awareness week, which runs from 7-11 April. The enhanced program will include nine camera-equipped trailers designed to better document and deter reckless driving through work zones and aligns with Mayor de Blasio’s Vision Zero initiative to make streets safer. In addition to the nine custom trailers, DOT will also purchase additional camera equipment that can be mounted t
April 10, 2014 Read time: 2 mins
5590 New York City Department of Transportation (DOT) has launched its new and improved Zone Watch program as part of National Work Zone Awareness week, which runs from 7-11 April. The enhanced program will include nine camera-equipped trailers designed to better document and deter reckless driving through work zones and aligns with Mayor de Blasio’s Vision Zero initiative to make streets safer.

In addition to the nine custom trailers, DOT will also purchase additional camera equipment that can be mounted to trucks.  These high-tech upgrades follow a pilot program introduced last April to record footage that could be used as evidence for work zone intrusions. Clear signage and speed boards will alert motorists to their speeds and remind them that the area is being monitored by video.

In New York City, nearly two dozen city DOT workers have been injured in work zone incidents since 2009 and seven died from work zone-related events during the past two decades. While investing in this mobile-camera technology better protects crews, everyone on the streets benefit - 85 per cent of those killed in work zones are motorists or passengers.

City officials and utilities executives launched the improved Zone Watch program at a road resurfacing work zone adjacent in Brooklyn.

“Dangerous driving in work zones threatens the lives of the men and women who maintain our streets, bridges and other infrastructure,” said DOT Commissioner Polly Trottenberg. “Vision Zero brings the need for safer streets into sharper focus. While every motorist needs to do their part by slowing down, our enhanced Zone Watch program is another important tool to protect our crews.”
Urban Traffic Control

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • New York City pilots park by phone
    April 25, 2013
    New York’s Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg recently announced two pilot programs that will allow motorists to pay for parking remotely and view real-time kerbside parking availability all via an app on their phone or online. In the first pilot, motorists can pay for metered parking via a smartphone app (PayByPhone), the internet or by telephone for 264 spaces along eighteen blocks in the Bronx, as well as at the New York City Department of Transportation’s Belmont municipal parking field. The new technology will
    Read More
  • Foundation funds research for informed campaigning
    April 29, 2015
    ITS International talks to Professor Stephen Glaister, director of the transport research and lobbying organisation, the RAC Foundation. It is through the eyes of an economist that Professor Stephen Glaister, emeritus professor of transport and infrastructure at Imperial College London and director of the RAC Foundation, views current and future transport problems. Having spent 30 years at the London School of Economics and another 10 at Imperial, the move to the RAC Foundation was a radical departure from
    Read More
  • Enforcement comes in many guises
    June 22, 2016
    Colin Sowman looks at some enforcement case studies from around the world. It is a sad fact of life that unenforced laws are not adhered to by a sometimes sizable proportion of the public and once enforcement is seen to be lacking, some drivers can take this to extremes and authorities must decide how to regain control.
    Read More
  • New warning system could improve work-zone safety
    October 18, 2013
    In a bid to improve work-zone safety, researchers from the University of Minnesota have developed the intelligent drum line (IDL) system prototype. The portable, dynamic system provides visual and auditory warnings to drivers who may have ignored or missed previous warning devices and pose a danger to the work-zone crew.
    Read More

Highlighted Content