Up-to-date information about dynamic roadway conditions can help drivers navigate more safely and efficiently. Currently, work zones present one of the highest-risk environments for both drivers and on-the-ground workers. In 2018, 30 percent of all work zone-related crashes involved larger trucks, while fatal work zone crashes where speeding was a factor increased by nearly 5% between 2016 and 2017 .

Mapping work zones is one-actionable and effective countermeasure to help reduce injuries and deaths caused by crashes. Even when authoritative information on road closures exists, however, it is difficult and costly to access. Furthermore, lack of data standards complicates its use across jurisdictions. Thus, inspired by the success of the General Transit Feed Specification (GTFS), US DOT launched the Work Zone Data Exchange (WZDx) Project to jump-start the voluntary and open exchange of this critical information.

As an authoritative information source, WZDx has the opportunity to supplement the crowd-sourced data acquisition processes and improve Open Street Map (OSM) data quality by diversifying data sources to make the free map more accurate and complete.

In this talk we will dig into how we can: • Examine how work zones constitute a fundamental change to a map • Explore how work zone data can begin to address the lack of operational layers and improve OSM functionality by using multiple layers to represent different features • Combine data from different sources to create more comprehensive and accurate geospatial data layers • Highlight challenges of the QA/QC processes with open data and propose the solutions • Discuss the project’s next steps regarding data standards development • Consider avenues to address the lack of standards in data representation for OSM • Discuss challenges and opportunities to create partnerships between OSM and other producers of authoritative data

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