Ohio Work Zone Safety Effort to Include Aerial Enforcement

State Departments of Transportation (DOTs) are putting more focus on work zone safety due to the increase of speeding-related incidents related in part to the low traffic volumes caused by the response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Ohio Department of Transportation (DOT) is collaborating with the Ohio State Highway Patrol (OSHP) to improve work zone safety via a new aerial enforcement program targeting crash-causing violations like speed, following too close, and failure to move over. OSHP routinely enforces speeding violations from the air across the state. The violation time and speed information is then relayed to a trooper on the ground who makes the traffic stop. The Ohio DOT has installed highway signs to alert drivers about the aerial work zone enforcement effort. In the meantime, a cellular vehicle-to-everything (C-V2X)  pilot project has been launched in Virginia to help improve work zone safety. The Virginia pilot project is equipping roadside workers with C-V2X vests and using Audi Q8 test vehicles specially equipped with a Qualcomm C-V2X-based platform, to deliver warnings and alerts to drivers and personnel about each other’s presence.