Wearable Technology for Highway Maintenance and Operation Safety: A Survey of Workers’ Perception and Preferences

Securing the safety of highway work zones is one of the most pressing issues in the highway maintenance and operation community. Recent studies have indicated that highway workers keep suffering from fatal injuries and death caused by traffic, long-night shifts, and limited space for maneuvering. In the meantime, recent advances in wearable technology have provided promising potential in the context of safety in different disciplines, especially building construction. However, highway workers have been underrepresented and limited information is available about their perception, preferences and ideas toward wearable technology. With this, in this paper, researchers document their early results in investigating the perception of highway workers toward wearable technology and their preferences among available devices to be used for safety purposes. Their results highlight a promising potential for the application of wearable technology in highway work zones and an acceptable level of engagement from the body of highway workers. Therefore, we envision this study to energize developers for further research and investment in the application of wearable technology in highway work zone safety.