Join roadway safety professionals for ATSSA’s Midyear Meeting to help shape policies and initiatives for the roadway safety infrastructure industry for the coming year.

Network with more than 350 industry professionals from across the country who are gathering in Providence, R.I., to further innovation and infrastructure for roadway safety, Aug. 23-26.

The meeting is tailored to national committee members and friends to learn, network and build leadership skills.

“These meetings are critical to the work of our Association,” said ATSSA President & CEO Stacy Tetschner. “We lay the groundwork for many efforts and innovations for advancing roadway safety at our committee and council meetings. We were pleased by last year’s record-breaking attendance of 381 and hope to exceed that this year as we work to develop roadway safety plans that utilize the funding approved in the Infrastructure Investment & Jobs Act.”

The Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) takes the first step in activating its variable speed zone along Interstate 95 in the Fredericksburg region today.

New LED signs that can display variable speed limits will be illuminated for the first several days with the 65-70 mph limit to give drivers time to adjust to the presence of the signs, VDOT announced. The system will be fully activated on June 22, at which point speed limits could be anywhere between 35 mph and 70 mph.

ATSSA examined variable speed zones in the Winter 2022 issue of Roadway Safety magazine in an article that analyzed their use in multiple states. The article, “Do They Improve Safety?” reviewed details of how the new VDOT variable speed zone will work and how the zones have been used elsewhere in Virginia and in regions across the country.

The Spring Issue of Roadway Safety magazine is online now and explores Ohio’s Smart Mobility Corridor along Interstate 33 between Dublin and East Liberty.

This 35-mile stretch of roadway in Northeast Ohio is a living laboratory where multiple organizations are testing automated and connected vehicle technology including ways to protect pedestrians. The project is a partnership between private industry and government entities as well as residents in those communities and has been dubbed “the world’s most connected highway.”

Convention Extra is also online and provides a commemorative of the 2022 Convention & Traffic Expo in Tampa, Fla., and an opportunity to see what you missed if you didn't attend this reunion of the roadway safety industry.

ATSSA President & CEO Stacy Tetschner reached out to the leaders of departments of transportation (DOTs) in all 50 states asking for their support for a standardized form for the Qualified Products List (QPL) and the Approved Products List (APL).

In a letter, Tetschner explains that a standardized form would help roadway safety products get to market faster by streamlining the current burdensome process of making a different application for every DOT across the country.

"If you are not aware, each DOT manages its QPL/APL submittals, reviews and approvals differently and this means each company wishing to see a product added to the list must go through the process 50 times, frequently in different ways with different forms, resulting in a very time-consuming, labor-intensive process,” Tetschner states in the letter. “This burdensome process delays getting new and improved products onto the roadways where they could save lives.”

The letter is signed by the president of each of ATSSA’s Chapters, which represent 1,500 member companies from across the country as well as many public agencies.

ATSSA’s 2022 Convention & Traffic Expo brought together more than 3,200 roadway safety advocates over five days in Tampa, Fla.

They collaborated, networked, learned about the latest innovations and even cheered on their favorite team at the Chairman’s Big Game Watch Party on Sunday evening.

Keynote speaker Scott Moore kept the packed crowd in the Ballroom of the Tampa Convention Center spellbound as he shared leadership and teamwork tips gleaned from his decades leading the elite Navy SEALs on “no fail” missions.

And Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg talked about the USDOT commitment to zero deaths on the nation's roadways while acknowledging that may not be achieved during his tenure but that ATSSA's members are needed to achieve that goal.

It's not too early to start planning now for next  year. The 2023 Convention & Traffic Expo takes place in Phoenix, Feb. 17-21 at the Phoenix Convention Center with the theme of “where roadway safety and Innovation intersect.”

TAMPA, Florida (Feb. 15, 2022) – Three exhibitors at ATSSA’s 52nd Annual Convention & Traffic Expo received Innovation Awards today in recognition of new products that contribute to the industry’s mission of advancing roadway safety and working Toward Zero Deaths.

The new products from 2021 were evaluated by a panel of judges made up of department of transportation personnel. Judges reviewed 14 items from companies across the U.S. and Canada as part of the New Products Rollout.

The Innovation Award winners were honored today during ATSSA’s Circle of Innovation where videos explaining their products were shown to the roadway safety infrastructure industry. Items were evaluated on the criteria of lifesaving qualities, degree of need, innovation, design and eligibility under the Highway Safety Improvement Program.

The National Roadway Safety Strategy (NRSS) unveiled by the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) on Thursday focuses on moving the U.S. towards zero roadway deaths by taking a safe systems approach that includes six central themes.

The themes laid out are that: deaths and serious injuries are unacceptable; human mistakes are inevitable; humans are vulnerable to injury and death; there is a shared responsibility for these incidents; safety can be and should be proactive; and redundancy is critical. The strategy introduced by Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg also focuses on five safety issues.

“ATSSA applauds Secretary Buttigieg on the release of the first National Roadway Safety Strategy, especially with its call for the enhanced protection of roadway construction workers," ATSSA President & CEO Stacy Tetschner said. "Shining a brighter spotlight on the need to dramatically reduce roadway fatalities is critically necessary.”

FREDERICKSBURG, Va. (Jan. 25, 2022) – The American Traffic Safety Services Association  selected 14 companies to participate in its 2022 New Products Rollout (NPRO), held in conjunction with the 52nd Annual Convention & Traffic Expo taking place Feb. 11-15 at the Tampa (Florida) Convention Center.

Each year, more than 3,500 people attend the largest roadway safety tradeshow in North America to see some of the latest innovations in the roadway safety infrastructure industry. The products submitted as part of NPRO are comprised of a wide range of devices designed to save lives on our nation’s roadways.

“The 2022 lineup for ATSSA’s New Products Rollout features products that provide a snapshot of some of the latest advancements made in the past year,” said ATSSA Director of Innovation & Technical Services Eric Perry. “I love this event because it provides a great opportunity to hear firsthand from our members about the latest and greatest products coming to the marketplace as well as the benefits of using them.”

FREDERICKSBURG, Va. (Jan. 10, 2022) – The American Traffic Safety Services Association (ATSSA), in partnership with the National Academy of Sciences Transportation Research Board (TRB), announces the winners of the 2022 Traffic Control Device (TCD) Student Challenge.

Engineering students from across the U.S. competed in the TCD Student Challenge, which was titled, “Innovative Traffic Control Device Strategies for Speed Management on Limited Access Freeways.”

The team from Michigan State University received the first place award with a project entitled, “Active traffic management using combined dynamic speed limit display and speed feedback sign.”

The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) and the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) on Monday announced the release of  responses to three questions regarding testing of roadway safety hardware under the Manual for Assessing Safety Hardware (MASH), 2016.

The guidance is available online and includes all new and prior questions and answers dating to May 2018.

A joint AASHTO/FHWA technical working group developed the latest responses, which are created to help manufacturers, crash test laboratories and transportation agencies apply the guidelines to roadway safety devices.