Two systems designated by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials Innovation Initiative, known as A.I.I., as “lead technologies” recently won a pair of safety awards.

The Michigan Department of Transportation recently took home the Governor’s Traffic Safety Advisory Commission 2018 Outstanding Traffic Safety Achievement Award for its Gateway Treatment.

That low-cost safety treatment puts typical in-street “Yield to Pedestrian” signs on the edge lines, the lane lines, and the center lines of a roadway – or on the curb of a median/refuge island – to not only improve “driver yielding” compliance to pedestrians but also reduce speeds at pedestrian crossing locations.

The Arizona Department of Transportation garnered an innovation award from the Women in Transportation Seminar’s Metropolitan Phoenix Chapter for the agency’s wrong-way vehicle alert system, now being tested along a stretch of Interstate 17.

That system uses 70 thermal cameras, illuminated signs with flashing lights, a tie-in to overhead message boards, and a direct alert connection to the Arizona Department of Public Safety so troopers can respond to wrong-way drivers immediately.