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Throughout the last two years, many of us have faced new experiences shaping how we view our future work lives. We’re contemplating career paths, reflecting on what motivates us, experiencing epiphanies, and making changes as a result. We’ve faced a new set of obstacles that’s created an opportunity to reexamine our lives. This panel of APWA leaders will provide an engaging open discussion about their careers—how they overcame barriers, faced adaption and personal resiliency, and pivoted during uncontrollable circumstances, similar to what some of us may be experiencing today. They’ll also focus on opportunities they never thought possible through public works and how their career paths shifted and changed throughout the years, offering a fresh, broad perspective of optimism and new ideas.
Read MoreFor the City of Houston, maintaining and updating school times for over 1,400 individual flashing school zone beacons is a major task. The City must physically touch each beacon at least twice a year to do preventative maintenance, and the process can take weeks. Installing new technology allows changing beacon times during the school year to become a remote process using cellular communications. This Texas-size flasher project with built-in artificial intelligence will be the largest installation that provides connectivity between the smart device and the traveling public via a smartphone app. With no downtime or negative impact to any school zone flasher schedule during the project, the City will become more efficient and proactive in maintaining the beacons. For additional information, please go to: http://houstontx.gov/visionzero/
Read MoreIn 2019, the Austin Public Works Department launched PWstat, a monthly executive reporting meeting that provides an overview of organizational health and an opportunity for the executive team to provide organizational clarity to participants. PWstat combines dashboards, presentations, and storytelling to help leaders and staff make more informed decisions about resources, operations, and more. By infusing data into all levels of the organization, PWstat has sparked a cultural shift and helped improve performance in Austin Public Works, introducing a new level of accountability in meeting annual commitments and expected service delivery to the community. Staff at all levels, from field crews to executives, are now more enthusiastic about performance measurement and better informed. This session will provide information about how Austin implemented PWstat and how to develop a similar program in your organization.
Read MoreThe Town Creek Culvert Project addresses a variety of water quantity and quality issues associated with a failing stormwater conveyance system draining 308.6 acres. This conveyance system, composed of brick and concrete installed before the 1930s, only passed the two-year storm event without flooding significant businesses within Uptown Greenville, N.C. To bring this system up to a 25-year level of service (LOS), the City of Greenville invested over $32 million to construct approximately 306 linear feet (LF) of 84-inch reinforced concrete pipe (RCP) and 1,943 LF of 10’X8’ reinforced concrete box culvert (RCBC) in a highly urbanized core. In addition to upsizing the existing storm drainage system, this project also offers significant water quality benefits by installing several stormwater control measures (SCMs), including a wetland, the largest regenerative stormwater conveyance system in the state, permeable pavement, and a bioretention area. Cumulatively, these SCMs are expected to remove up to 250 pounds Nitrogen /year in a highly impervious watershed.
Read MoreTraffic incidents caused by wrecks, breakdowns, hazards in the road and weather events happen every day. These incidents result in injuries, fatalities, billions of dollars of damages, and delays in travel. They also create great risk to responders from all disciplines. The lack of standard protocols, coordination, and communication among responders from police, fire, EMS, towing and public transportation agencies has caused major hindrances to safe, quick clearance. FHWA created this multi-disciplinary TIM Responder course to address these problems. If your agency deals with traffic incidents, this workshop is for you.
Read MoreKnowledge experts will discuss why a smart irrigation system is a sound choice for your lawn and landscape program. The presenters will discuss the benefits of water conservation and the benefits…
Read MoreOne of the core jobs of the fleet manager is to make sure fleet assets are provided in a cost-effective, efficient manner. Having a solid, reliable basis for determining those…
Read MoreMobile observations have become an integral part of snow and ice programs. Mobile sensors have also evolved throughout the years from traditional units that only gave air and pavement temperatures. Learn about the FHWA IMO (integrating mobile observations) initiative. Learn how these sensors have evolved and what these new units are capable of doing. The speakers will discuss how they help both the operator and the agency, how the data is visualized and used, and how agencies and airports have implemented these units.
Read MoreThe speaker will share how bringing new ideas to his department as a new Street Supervisor were initially met with resistance, making his transition difficult. However, as time went on, with some employees leaving and new ones being hired, he was able bring new strategies from the APWA North American Snow Conference to his division. By learning how to get total team buy-in and learning from his failures, the department is now seeing great success with snow removal efforts while minimizing salt use.
Read MoreTo successfully handle snow management and removal, public works professionals must look to current and future equipment capabilities to operate more safely and efficiently. This session will provide insight on the benefits and implementation of current and future connected technology for snow management and removal for public roads and private lots. Examples of possible functionality include route optimization, traffic signal prioritization, object detection, lane detection and real-time traffic reporting, and customer communication and transactions.
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