WZDx v3 Specification Update Subgroup Meeting Notes, 2020 04 29 - usdot-jpo-ode/wzdx GitHub Wiki

Virtual Attendees

  • Aaron Antrim - Trillium
  • Nate Deshmukh Towery - Volpe
  • Ariel Gold - USDOT
  • Carole Delion - MDOT SHA
  • Chris Brookes - MDOT
  • Chuck Felice - UDOT
  • Craig Moore - Seattle DOT
  • Dan Sprengeler - IOWA DOT
  • David Craig - GM
  • Deborah Curtis - USDOT
  • Derald W Dudley - USDOT/BTS
  • Eric Ricciardi - Booz Allen
  • Erin Schoon - WIDOT
  • Hua Xiang - Maryland DOT
  • Jacob Brady - IBI Group
  • Jianming Ma - TxDOT
  • Jim Williams - INRIX
  • jingwei xu - Texas DOT
  • Kali Fogel - RIITS
  • Kellen Shain - Noblis
  • Luke Urie - Austin Transportation Dept
  • Lynne Randolph - SWRI
  • Mahsa Ettefagh -Booz Allen Hamilton
  • Mark Mockett - USDOT Volpe Center
  • Marysa Myers - Uber ATG
  • Michelle Boucher - IBI Group
  • Neil Boudreau - MassDOT
  • Paula Okunieff - ICF
  • Pier Castonguay - Ver-Mac
  • Qassim Abdullah - Woolpert
  • Rachel Ostroff - ICF
  • Ross Sheckler - iCone
  • Sabrina Mosher - SWRI
  • Skylar Knickerbocker - Iowa State
  • Tom Stidham - WA State DOT
  • Valerie Shuman - SCG
  • Weimin Huang - HERE
  • Wesley Alford - USDOT Volpe Center
  • Yang Cheng - Univ. Wisconsin-Madison, Traffic Ops and Safety Lab (TOPS)

Purpose and Intended Outcomes:

  • Discuss prioritized list of issues, those tagged as: “v3 Candidate” & “Need Discussion”
  • Identify advocates for the prioritized issues
  • Begin to create pull requests for prioritized issues
  • Prepare to provide feedback on prioritized issues/pull requests

Agenda

  • Sign-in and Welcome
  • Prioritized Issues for v3 Specification
  • Additional Issues for Discussion with Members
  • Action Items and Next Steps

Discussion Summary

Prioritized issues to be considered in v3 specification were presented to the members and feedback was requested. There prioritized issues and comments received from attendees during the meeting are listed below.

  • Issue #82 - Include Detour Information for a Road Event

    • Neil Boudreau, MassDOT: A map based tool to show the detour is certainly the way to go.
    • Lynne Randolph: Right now, we do not typically include detour information, so no real comments on that
    • Neil Boudreau, MassDOT: The need will be here eventually so we might as well go for it now.
    • Jim Williams (INRIX): What would the underlying standard be for the linestring? Or will that be discussed in the pull? *Chris Brookes MDOT: the thing to also keep in mind is you have two types of detours as we have truck detours and passanger car detours at times.
    • Paula okunieff (ICF): The geometry will need to be lane level geometry and the accuracy need to be at very accurate level
    • Lynne Randolph: should include a textual description as well
    • Jim Williams (INRIX): Looking forward to participating on the #82 PR. Not sure I can be a point person on that item. Not sure I can be a point person on #82 but looking forward to participating on the PR.

  • Issue #81 - Require restriction type for a lane restriction

    • Chris Brookes MDOT: so how would working outside the roadway be added? Tree Clearing Surveying operations? We want to show the workers on the side of the road. as this is a common work type. I just wanted to make sure that was an option as if you cant leave it blank, but sounds like it is. Chris is already part of the Worker Presence subgroup.

  • Issue #80 - Format of "road_event_feed_info" "version" property, possible enumerated type

    • Lynne Randolph: I'm good with major.minor
    • Neil Boudreau, MassDOT: I think that makes the most sense
    • Derald W Dudley: +1 for major.Minor
    • Marysa Myers: Agreed, major.minor would be easiest and could avoid any inconsistencies using V, v, v., etc
    • Jim Williams (INRIX): Also agree with major.minor.
    • Ariel and David Craig to review the definition of major/minor versions of the specification

  • Issue #70 - Change Time/Spatial Enumerated Type enumerations to be lowercase

    • Derald W Dudley: option 1 - changing to lowercase
    • Lynne Randolph: option 1. we have a feed, that's an easy change

  • Issue #67 - Change lane_number to lane_index; clarify/standardize first value

    • Hua Xiang - Maryland DOT: Which DOT use 0 as the right most lane?
    • David Craig @ GM: Maps tend to start with 1 and there is no such thing as lane zero. Use lane_number
    • Lynne Randolph: starting at 0 is a programming thing, a feed should start with 1
    • Hua Xiang - Maryland DOT: Agree. Support: Lane Numaber, and starts with 1
    • Sabrina Mosher: We currently standardize at 1 with a left edge reference in our feed. lane_index would make it confusing with lane_id
    • Neil Boudreau, MassDOT: Start with 1 and use Lane Number
    • Carole Delion (MDOT SHA): yes, standardized - question on whether 1 includes shoulder?
    • Lynne Randolph: yes, doesn't make sense to have random numbers as indices either
    • Pier Castonguay (Ver-Mac): Agreed we define lanes starting at 1 too
    • Valerie Shuman: In IL, some shoulders are lanes some of the time... (e.g., for buses)
    • Carole Delion (MDOT SHA): we use lane number, not index
    • Skylar Knickerbocker (Iowa State): lane_number
    • Jim Williams (INRIX): Lane_number dodges the "Indexes start at 0" argument.
    • Chris Brookes MDOT: Is there a diagram that could be created to show this so everyone is doing it the same, once determined. Left to right or tight to left inside/out. Seems like a short example would help.
    • Neil Boudreau, MassDOT: I agree with Mr. Brookes, a diagram that shows the end-user what we mean by the lane numbering configuration is the best way to ensure understanding and consistency.

  • Issue #66 - Including lane_edge_reference on every lane in a road event is confusing

    • Lynne Randolph: if we standardize the lane numbering, we shouldn't really need this field (#66 issue)
    • Sabrina Mosher: We would need it but just once. The default is from the right but we number from the left
    • Lynne Randolph: that's fine too, but direction of the event is already there. We standardize the lanes from the inside out or outside in or whichever is decided
    • Carole Delion (MDOT SHA): from right tends to be the practice, I believe some of it also aligns with HPMS submissions (from traffic counts)
    • Jim Williams (INRIX): The conformist in me likes option 2 but option 1 give more flexibility to end users.
    • Chris Brookes MDOT: yes pick one and keep it that way.
    • Lynne Randolph: I'd rather everyone's feeds are consistent
    • Neil Boudreau, MassDOT: Doesn't the TIMS side of the house establish a standard lane naming convention
    • Lynne Randolph: we translate things all the time depending on the end use
    • Neil Boudreau, MassDOT: I am pretty sure that they do. I can ask Paul Jodoin
    • Jim Williams (INRIX): No issues with standardizing.
    • Carole Delion (MDOT SHA): no issues with standardizing
    • David Craig @ GM: I prefer standardization.
    • Jianming Ma (TxDOT): i would support standardizing lane numbering convention.
    • Lynne Randolph: no issues, I was trying to see if the C2C/NTCIP spec had it in there
    • Jianming Ma (TxDOT): Please note that in the lane shifting situations, shoulders could be used as one of travel lanes.
    • Craig Moore: The spec currently states lanes are counted from the first improved surface, which would be the shoulder in most cases.
    • Dan Sprengeler IOWA DOT: It is conceivable that an existing traffic lane needs to be shifted beyond the existing shoulder line on to temporary pavement. What are the lane assignments now?
    • Craig Moore: First improved surface would be lane 1, in this case it would be the temporary pavement.
    • David Craig @ GM: Does it fix this ambiguity if we start numbering from the left?

  • Issue #10 – Metadata File

  • Issue #6 – Recurrent Events

    • Lynne Randolph: we should use a calendar, for sure. right now, the information is misleading since we're splitting and outputting 14 days of a recurring event at a time.
    • Neil Boudreau, MassDOT: I think that a calendar approach is the way to go and would follow along with updates that we hope to make to our lane closure notification process in MA
    • Ross Sheckler: I am not familiar with JSCalendar but we have concerns with the hierarchy of projects, events, and activities within an event. We are trying to establish a metric around activity within a project that is within traffic
    • Jim Williams (INRIX): Calendar - UTC? - yes
    • Sabrina Mosher: Dealing with the recurring event was the one of the most difficult part of producing a feed so a calendar would be good. It would also make it more clear that an event was recurring rather than having to see that the event occurred multiple times by looking at multiple events
    • Qassim Abdullah: Are we planning broadcasting such events for future AV/CV
    • Ross Sheckler: If an activity is continuous in time it is a single event. If an activity such as a lane closure is terminated and started at a later time it is two separate events.
    • Derald W Dudley: https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-calext-jscalendar-26
    • Carole Delion (MDOT SHA): Having a means to track/measure post event may be needed on top of users on the road ingesting the information

  • Issue #78 – Work Zone Events Description

    • Ross Sheckler: We are working on a definition of an event-day to measure some of this.
    • Ariel Gold (USDOT): how would this impact the ability to track level of work zone activity across jurisdictions?
    • Ross Sheckler: This is particularly important with the moving operations case
    • Jim Williams (INRIX): To clarify, is solution #1 a specific tag for the work zone activity that can apply to multiple events? Such as "expanding roadway n from MP 1 to 10" and then apply that to two separate events, one affecting MP 1 to 5, the other 5 to 10?
    • Jianming Ma (TxDOT): mobile vs. stationary operations?
    • Weimin Huang (HERE): is there a measure for diversion, MUTCD makes a difference between Detour and Diversion, diversion is when traffic is diverted onto a temporary facility placed around the work zone.
    • Neil Boudreau, MassDOT: There is certainly a lot to discuss on this and it may be best served to allow for feedback between meetings with a follow up next month. I certainly see the need to address this
    • Pier Castonguay (Ver-Mac): Have to keep in mind evolving lane closures that might move over time on the workzone which changes the lanes specifications at different positions depending on the day..

Action Items and Next Steps

  • Provide feedback on the prioritized issues discussed today
  • Create pull requests for the prioritized issues, based on feedback received
  • Create any additional issues to be considered for v3 specification by May 15th