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When snowflakes fly residents get worried. “Can I make it home?” “Where are the plows?” “When are they going to plow my street?” Clear and effective communication keeps residents informed and eases the anxiety that winter storms bring. In this session the speaker will demonstrate the importance of effective policy and procedure, and how that helps manage information. Using his own experience, the speaker will make the session practical by focusing on road condition information during a winter storm. He will lead a discussion regarding effective channels for distributing information to the public; show how his county uses SharePoint to maintain updated road condition information, and describe how using low-cost software can empower staff and others to collect road information.
Read MoreHigh Friction Surface treatments include a two-part application of an epoxy binder followed with placement of rough, hard, and durable aggregates on an existing roadway surface. These treatments reduce roadway departure accidents by increasing surface friction. Promoted by PennDOT and the Federal Highway Administration, Allegheny County has used this treatment for the past few years and found it is a cost-effective safety treatment for strategic locations on roadways where friction needs to be maximized (such as steep grades or sharp horizontal curves). It provides texture to existing concrete or asphalt surfaces without sacrificing uniformity or rideability. Other public works agencies may find this treatment has value for their own assets.
Read MoreWhether proposing infrastructure project budgets, relaying critical construction information to stakeholders, or sharing emergency updates to residents, gaining community support and communicating to that community is a key component of a successful public works department. In this session, our presenters will discuss how thought-out and innovative communication plans are vital to the perception of public works departments and community support. Reviewing two case studies, the speakers will discuss outreach and branding strategies used for the City of Gloucester’s Department of Public Works and the Town of Lexington’s Downtown Revitalization Project, sharing how consistent branding and messaging has not only streamlined communication to the public but how these efforts have positively impacted the perception of public works professionals and the imperative work they do.
Read MoreCulture is often used to describe creating a positive work environment. But how is a good culture developed? Is employee engagement and appreciation enough? A leader has to take risks and apply creative ways to focus on morale, retention, and attraction of employees. Engaging employees to help management develop the foundation of a positive culture through a team-building exercise provides instant buy-in. Simply, the employees defined a culture they would like for management, and the speaker guided them to create the foundation. The benefit of the foundation exercise is that participants will leave with ideas that will spark creative thinking, employee engagement, and workforce development.
Read MoreAre you frustrated with your current performance at work? How about your boss? Are you judging someone on your team because you don’t believe they are motivated to get the job done? How about your team? Is it just not functioning the way you would like it to function? When it comes to work, we all have our gifts and natural talents that give us energy. The Working Genius model helps to identify those gifts and natural abilities that help us to maximize our satisfaction and success at work. Don’t think of this as a personality model but more of a ”productivity model” that consists of six necessary ingredients for success. The goal is to see where you and your teammates fit into the model to maximize everyone’s satisfaction and success in the work they do every day.
Read MoreIntelligent transportation systems (ITS) infrastructure impacts on operations and maintenance are on several levels, including the maintenance and operation demand, staffing required, and the cost to ensure the new systems continue to operate. Traffic engineering staff are being asked to do more than ever as fiber communications, cameras, sensors, and cellular vehicle-to-everything (C-V2X) are being deployed. Even traditional maintenance has taken on an increased urgency when sensors’ operational uptime is being pushed to 100%. New skills and expertise are needed to maintain and operate new communications, networks, and audio-visual assets. Traditional traffic engineering tasks like signal timing are more complex. Budgeting considerations to keep up with the new systems and ensuring the latest technologies can be accommodated are being challenged as well. Jurisdictions should focus on the operation and maintenance of both new and legacy systems to ensure efficient and cost-effective results for the public.
Read MoreGeorgetown County (GC), a predominantly rural community with limited funding, recently undertook an asset management system (AMS) implementation through its Department of Public Services (DPS) that resulted from a need to replace a 15-year-old work order system. Before AMS, County asset data were a seemingly disparate cache of spreadsheets, systems, and geographic information systems (GIS) maintained within different departments. This presentation will focus on how GC galvanized around a desire to unify AMS data and the process to achieve this result. The assets discussed will include roads, drainage, fleet, facilities, solid waste management, and how County policies were converted to digital workflows. The speaker will also discuss how the County leveraged cloud architecture, which helped them endure a five-month ransomware ordeal. Highlighted will be lessons learned, discerning perception versus reality, and ultimately arriving at the foundation of a strong AMS affording data and financially-driven planning and decision making.
Read MoreThe Metropolitan Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWTP) was constructed in 1936 to treat wastewater from the Twin Cities area. To direct flow to the new facility in St. Paul, large-diameter interceptors were constructed, using combined sewer overflow (CSO) regulator structures to capture dry-weather flow for treatment. Metropolitan Council Environmental Services (MCES) hired Brown and Caldwell to modernize and reconfigure Emergency Relief Structure ERS04 and rehabilitate approximately 800 feet of the downstream sewer tunnel(s). The tunnels and two badly corroded drop shafts required rehabilitation design based on scant inspection data. Minnehaha Falls Park, immortalized in Longfellow’s “The Song of Hiawatha” and visited by U.S. presidents, is a jewel to the City of Minneapolis and the site of this complex project. Disruptions to about 850,000 annual park visitors, nearby residents, and groundwater that feeds a legally protected spring, were prohibited. Public involvement and an innovative design approach led to successful implementation with minimal disruption.
Read MoreThe most forward-thinking organizations are making strategic investments in artificial intelligence (AI), especially machine learning, using location data as the connective thread to automate processes, improve predictive modeling, and gain operational efficiency. Public works organizations already use a geographic information system (GIS) to uncover hidden patterns, gain crucial insights, and provide the best government services for citizens. Now, the benefits of GIS can be accelerated with artificial intelligence and machine learning. This session will provide an overview of GeoAI and show examples of how public works agencies are using it to optimize snow and ice management, automate data collection, prioritize maintenance of infrastructure, identify areas of blight or homelessness, and allocate resources based on the greatest need.
Read MoreThe objective of this session is to facilitate a technology exchange among international public works officials and to discuss and promote innovative public works technologies, operations, and best practices in the field of public works. The expectation is that APWA chapters will have a better understanding of international issues and approaches the international community has used to meet various public works challenges. These challenges have placed new demands upon implementing sustainable and resilient solutions. In engineering, construction, and maintenance, resilience has been defined as the ability to absorb or avoid damage without suffering complete failure. But a more comprehensive definition is that it is the ability to respond, absorb, and adapt to, as well as recover from, a disruptive event. Resilience is about how systems perform, not just about how they are or remain safe.
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