Pittsburgh, PA – The Pennsylvania
Department of Transportation (PennDOT) today announced that a team of students
from the North Allegheny School District, Allegheny County has been selected as
the PennDOT District 11 winner for its second Innovations Challenge.
Mentored by Laura
Prosser, team members include Isha Das and Leela Pinnamaraju.
Since
last fall, students have been working hard to solve this year’s challenge,
which asked students to look at
innovative methods, aside from laws and educational campaigns, that can be
developed in the next five to 10 years to get drivers to slow down in work
zones.
“Every day,
construction workers on Pennsylvania roadways face a dangerous threat in work
zones,” said PennDOT Secretary Leslie S. Richards. “Despite increased
enforcement efforts, work zone signage and smartphone alerts, drivers continue
to commit traffic violations in work zones, which can lead to crashes or
tragically someone being killed. We challenged our next generation of leaders
to become an active part of the solution by developing innovative ways to
tackle this transportation issue.”
The winning
regional team’s innovation was an app that will allow users to see their
violations in construction zones in real time, while rewarding drivers with
points for good behavior and penalize violators.
Now in its second
year, the PennDOT Innovations Challenge invites high school students in grades
9-12 to use their problem-solving, creative and strategic-thinking abilities to
solve real-world transportation challenges. The Innovations Challenge aims to
not only help students explore actual transportation challenges that PennDOT is
facing, but also open their minds to the very real possibility of working for
PennDOT after graduation.
“Work zone safety
is a top priority across the state and it was pleasure to see the creative
approaches these young people took towards addressing the issue,” said Jason
Zang, PennDOT District 11 Assistant District Executive of Construction. “With
students like this leading the way, I am so excited to see what the future will
hold for the field of transportation.”
Regional winners will
now move on to compete in Harrisburg on April 10 for the state championship.
The statewide winning team will be awarded $1,500 from the Pennsylvania Chapter
of the American Traffic Safety Services Association (ATSSA) to be divided among
team members.
Follow PennDOT on
Twitter at twitter.com/PennDOTNews
and like the department on Facebook at facebook.com/PennsylvaniaDepartmentofTransportation
and Instagram at instagram.com/pennsylvaniadot.
MEDIA CONTACT: Yasmeen
Manyisha, Safety Press Officer; (Office) 412-429-5044, (Cell) 412-292-9357
###