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March 8, 2019 - Work Worth Doing - Doug Burgum
39:08
#4 - NDDOT: On a wing and a plow

Snow plow drivers are the heroes of the winter in North Dakota. Governor Burgum joins Craig Sperling, a plow driver for more than three decades, to learn how a statewide fleet of drivers clears thousands of miles of roads after every storm. He also chats with Tom Sorel, director of the ND Department of Transportation, on the future of transportation.

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North Dakota's history is full of legendary people and today North Dakota is a place where anyone can be legendary.
Theodore Roosevelt, 26th President of the United States once said, far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.
This is a show about people doing just that for the people of the great state of North Dakota.
Here's Mark Staples, a member of my team, to tell you more about today's episode.
Hi.
Here on Work Worth Doing, I'll be joining in every now and then to give you a bit more context, background, and perspective on the conversations you'll hear throughout this series.
Even though spring is on the horizon, every North Dakotan knows one thing for sure.
This winter still has a few snowstorms left in it.
And just as certain as there will be flakes falling from the sky, the North Dakota Department of Transportation will send its hundreds of snow plows out into the elements to clear thousands of miles of roads so that you and I can drive safely.
On this episode, Governor Burgum is joined by Tom Sorrell, Director of the North Dakota DOT, to talk about this massive and frequent undertaking.
We also make a visit to Craig Sperling, a snowplow operator with the DOT, for more than three decades to get a more hands-on understanding of today's snowplow technology.
But first, here's Doug Burgum and Tom Sorrell.
Okay, welcome to Work Worth Doing.
Today we're visiting with Tom Sorrell, Director of the North Dakota Department of Transportation.
Tom, you've had an amazing career working at both the state and the federal level.
We're so pleased to have you here in North Dakota.
Tell us a little bit about your background.
How did you get into working in the whole transportation space?
Yeah, it's great to be here.
As you're correct, I've had a long career in transportation.
I got right out of school.
I have a degree in civil engineering, and it's something I was just attracted to.
After I got out of school, I went to work for USDOT, and I moved all around the country in a lot of different jobs and got a lot of different experience.
I had some really interesting jobs throughout my career.
I worked on the Olympics in Salt Lake City.
I worked in Washington D.C. on policy issues, things like that.
And so I really jumped at every opportunity I could to learn as much as I could about transportation.
And then I landed in Minnesota back in 2005 with Federal Highway Administration, and I was there for a while, and then the 35W Bridge collapsed.
And at that time, there was a lot of issues with that, and they needed a new commissioner at the DOT, and the governor asked me if I'd be willing to take that on, so I did.
And I did that for close to five years and it was a great job.
I learned I was very passionate about working in a DOT, in a DOT environment.
So I did that for close to five years there and then I left for some other opportunities in the private sector.
And then I just feel fortunate to be here now.
I've been here about a year and a half.
And Tom, certainly in your career with the Olympics and doing stuff at the federal level, but to be called upon to come in after a tragedy like the I-35 bridge collapse, that had to be...
I mean, I would say it's both a...
It's kind of the civil engineer's nightmare to have a catastrophic failure, but then you're coming in after that as the fix-it turnaround person to rebuild procedures and morale and fight for funding and do all the things to make sure that infrastructure is there and it's safe.
But tell us a little bit more about that episode.
Yeah, that's a great question.
You know, when the governor asked me to do that, I'll be honest with you, I thought about it.
I thought about it long and hard because it was a tough situation to walk into.
And at the end of the day, I thought it was really a challenge for my own leadership skills.
And I felt very strongly that I could maybe help the people at the DOT. And we had several challenges at that point in time.
We had to Rebuild the morale of the agency.
But I think just as important and maybe more important, public trust and confidence in us was really shattered at that point because people didn't feel safe traveling over bridges on our system.
And that was part of my biggest job is to rebuild public trust and confidence.
In the agency, in the system, and I worked really hard at that.
And I think at the end of the day, we rebuilt that.
But that was a big, huge, huge leadership challenge for me.
But I tell you what, it was the people of that agency that made that happen.
It was a resilient group of people.
And we did it together.
I didn't do it alone.
I just opened doors for people to walk through to make that happen.
And it was a true servant leadership opportunity, if you will.
And we functioned as true servant leaders to bring that back.
Well, fantastic.
And now, in North Dakota, just talk a little bit about the breadth.
I mean, this is one of our state's biggest agencies with, obviously, work that really matters, life and death work in terms of the importance of the work you're doing.
But talk a little bit about the agency and the role it plays in North Dakota.
Yeah, you're absolutely correct.
The DOT is a really important agency in this state, and we cover a lot of aspects of people's lives.
I always say this agency, in any DOT as far as that goes, has an important place to play in people's quality of life.
And if you think about it, transportation, if it's there, it can have a positive impact on your quality of life.
If it's not there, it can be really negative on your quality of life.
And I try to remind our people We're here to serve our citizens and enhance their quality of life via our transportation systems.
Whether you're driving in your car, whether you're expecting goods to be delivered at your stores, whether you're riding a bus, whether you're riding a scooter these days, you know, there's all kinds of modes of transportation.
Part of my responsibility is to be a steward of the funds we get and to provide sound transportation systems for our citizens and make sure they have options and opportunity.
I think several years ago that wasn't the case, but today in North Dakota we want to make sure people have options and we want to have a multi-modal approach to how we design our transportation system.
So it's not just driving your car down the road, but you need an option To hop on the transit system, to use the bicycle, to walk.
We want to make our system safe for all people.
One of the specific challenges of maintaining that is maintaining that statewide system in all seasons and all weather conditions.
And I know we're fortunate to have a dedicated group of people that are out making sure the roads are open and safe for people throughout the winter.
But just tell us a little bit about our team that's out there driving the plows and helping us do our everyday business in the weather we get in North Dakota every winter.
You know, those folks are, I like to call our snowplow operators, our snow and ice control operators, are the heart and soul of the agency.
And they really are, you know, if you talk to those folks, they're so committed and passionate about what they do, and they won't stop until our roads are clear and our people are safe out there.
They truly are heroes of the DOT, and we call them that.
We call them heroes, and they really give their heart and soul to those jobs, and they're passionate about them.
When they're not plowing snow in the winter, they're actually out there cutting grass and doing other things in the summer, and they do a lot of other critical services.
For instance, we work with the Highway Patrol.
During a crash situation and these folks will grab, at each of our district offices we have trailers with traffic control devices.
They'll take those things out during a crash site and they'll help the highway patrol manage traffic and conditions and keep people safe.
And so their safety is their number one priority.
It's the top thing on their mind.
But to me, they're a key part of our culture.
And they are our culture.
If you talk to people about any DOT, whether it's here or any place, they always think of the snow and ice control people because they're the face of the DOT. And they do remarkable things.
I can tell you story after story of some of these operators.
They're not just plowing snow out there, but they'll help People, if they see people in trouble, they'll stop and help them.
And I know that over the course of your career that technology for snow and ice control has changed a lot, and there's some new capabilities.
Drivers now are driving bigger and more sophisticated machines, more expensive machines that can do all kinds of amazing things.
They've more than doubled their productivity if you've got a...
Toe plow, but just tell us a little bit about the changes over your career that have gone on and what do you see and where does North Dakota stack up?
You know, if you look back in time, the snow plows that I kind of grew up with in my career were very...
They weren't very sophisticated, let me put it that way.
And people were kind of doing things by the seat of their pants.
You know, even the routes they ran and the way they distributed product on the roadway, that's changed completely.
If you go in one of these plows and you ride in it with the driver...
It's like being in a cockpit of a plane.
There's all kinds of controls.
There's computers.
There's a lot of sophistication.
What's remarkable to me is folks that kind of grew up in the system, you would think that it would be difficult for them to adapt, but they're not.
These folks, because they're so passionate about their jobs, when you throw a new technology at them, they want to adapt and they want to make it better for the citizens.
But it's changed a lot.
The way we spread our materials has changed.
The way we know what the road, the weather, you know, helps us decide what kinds of materials we put down and when we put them down.
The materials themselves have changed.
The equipment's changed.
Tow plows are a big improvement for us.
We're actually looking at some technology related to autonomous vehicles and things like that that we can maybe apply to our snow and ice control operations.
So, It's remarkable how it is today.
We stack up pretty well in the rest of the country.
I think we're one of the leaders when you look at how we do this and how we perform and operate.
And I'd put us up against anybody.
Tom, tell us a little bit about route optimization because people may have heard that UPS drivers don't make left turns anymore because they've figured out a way to save fuel and save time and save money with using sophisticated computer programs for route optimization.
DOT is very complicated when we're trying to plow 17,000 lane miles with distributed Sites where the drivers are starting from all over the state.
Tell us how you've approached that.
Yeah, we conducted a study this past year and we hired a consultant to help us that has done route optimization in other parts of the country.
I think we're again on the leading edge of that discussion.
What we did is we took a computer optimization program, but we got a lot of input from our operators.
And we asked them what travel speeds they typically would use to cover our roadways, where they travel.
There's a lot of data that we inputted into that program.
At the end of the day, we're able to take our routes that we utilize today and really optimize them so that the operator can go out and travel certain patterns on our system so that we're not duplicating efforts or we're maximizing the time it takes to clear the road.
And tell me, how many of these hero plow drivers do we have working for the state of North Dakota?
We've got, the number varies, but it's roughly around 350 folks that go out.
And as I said, in the winter, they plow snow.
In the summer, they're out doing maintenance activities and trying to help seal cracks in the roads and mowing and things like that.
Tom, I would have to agree with you that these incredible North Dakota team members that are out there doing snow and ice control really are heroes, and as part of really understanding the great work that our team members do, making an effort this year to actually get out and Be with those folks.
So no better way to learn about what a hero is doing for their job than actually go spend some time with them.
And I was excited recently to have an opportunity to do a ride-along with one of your fantastic team members, Craig Sperling.
33 years working for the ND DOT and had a chance to do a walk around and ride with him and see the latest and greatest in some really sophisticated snow and ice control machinery.
and so let's go for a ride. - There's a few things you should know before we head over to the DOT plow shop.
First, North Dakota DOT plows only run on certain roads, like state and federal highways.
Residential streets are usually maintained by municipal governments.
Second, the DOT's snow and ice management equipment is more than just a plow on the front of a truck.
In addition to the plow trucks, which often have as many as three blades on them, the DOT has powerful snowblowers capable of throwing large quantities of snow clear across the highway.
And in the past few years, the DOT has also added something called a tow plow.
In other words, a plow on a trailer that you tow behind the plow truck.
These trailer plows can swing out in either direction behind the plow truck and carry thousands of gallons of de-icing liquid.
It's hard to picture what these look like if you've never seen one, so I'd encourage you to go look it up online.
That should be enough background for now.
Let's head inside.
Hey, here we are today with a fantastic North Dakota Department of Transportation.
And we're here in this incredible facility.
We've got a beautiful winter day outside so all the equipment is inside.
Normally if we had a snow event this would be filled with professionals and panning out across the region taking care of stuff but none of this equipment works unless you've got People that know and professionally know how to drive and professionally know how to operate it.
And we're here with Craig Sperling.
And Craig, how long have you been with DOT? 33 years.
And how long have you been driving equipment?
33 years.
And you've seen a lot of changes over those years?
Yes, I have.
Absolutely.
And so we're going to walk around some of the newest stuff you've got.
Let's do that.
And then later on we'll go for a ride.
But let's go...
Let's go look at a tow plow.
Okay, that'd be fantastic.
Where's mine from originally?
My original home was Lair, North Dakota.
I grew up in a small town.
My dad was a farmer down there.
Also implement business.
He was in the implement business for 43 years.
Oh, so you grew up around equipment.
Yeah, grew up around equipment.
And then how about school?
Did Lair have a high school?
Yeah, I went to Lair High School, graduated from there, and then I went to college for air-conditioned refrigeration and heating for a year.
Then I moved to Beulah for a year, got on full-time, moved to Wishwick for 24 years.
Now I'm up in Bismarck for a supervisor job.
So you're in badger country down there in Wishwick?
I was a badger for a while, yes I was, absolutely.
This is our tow plow.
This is a double, you can do 24 feet on either side.
It's a double wing tow plow.
I think a lot of people in North Dakota understand how agriculture has changed over the years, and the equipment's just gotten bigger and bigger and more effective, more technology.
But when you were starting 33 years ago, you were basically running a plow that was the width of one lane on the front of the truck you were operating.
That's all I had was one plow on the front of the truck.
And then on the tow plow, give me the width again, how much?
It was 24 feet.
24 feet, so you're able to basically do twice as much Twice as much.
Plus you have a wing and a plow in front of the truck.
And you can have 2,000 gallons of liquid too.
Wow.
It's impressive.
I'm sure that liquid is 8 pounds a gallon.
So you're talking 16,000 pounds of fluid on top of everything else.
So this is effectively almost a semi's worth of weight when you're heading out.
Absolutely.
So then again, why we have professionals operating these, because we're talking about the stopping distances and low visibility and ice conditions that you're driving in all those years.
But then tell me, how long have we had these tow plows?
Cory, we've had these tow plows for what now?
2010. Cory was our first tow plow operator.
Okay, so tow plows could have come in the last decade.
Yes.
And then have they continued to advance during that time?
Yes, they have.
They've been building them better and bigger, like the double wing here.
And tell me, what was it like the first time you pulled one of these things?
First time I pulled when I went out with my supervisor on a dry road, middle of summer.
It was a little scary, yeah.
But the more you operate it, the easier it gets, you know.
Typical shift, how long are you out behind the wheel when you've got a storm?
Every event is different.
So usually if you've got a storm event, it's 14 hours.
You'll be out for 14 hours.
And then what's in your 33 years, what's the longest you've ever had to work on a...
24 hours.
24 hours?
Yeah.
Wow.
96, 97. Yeah, during the big ones.
Yep.
And then making sure people get where they needed to go.
Yep.
Like I was telling these guys earlier, it took me 11 hours.
It took me 8 hours to go 11 miles one time for an emergency run between Leonard and Wishick.
Two guys in a truck, one in a v-plow.
One guy was holding the torch to keep my window open while I drove to get there.
Yeah, and who was behind you trying to get someone into a hospital?
We were trying to get the ambulance to Lair and get them out of there, over to Wishick.
Yeah, incredible.
It was a trip.
Yeah, well, thank you not only for your 33 years of service, but thanks for all the heroic work you've done during that time too.
Tell me about how many miles when a shift, 14 hours on a shift, what would be a typical route for one of the DOT file drivers?
Then again, it depends on the event.
If you're in Metro, inner city, or if you're running down Highway 1806, you know, and an average guy on the other day put 340 miles on his truck.
On one shift?
On one shift.
340 miles?
Yes, yep.
And he was running east out of Sterling and back.
That's all he did all day long.
And I think I've heard the number, the combined total of all of the over 350 drivers that drive for DOT, 17,000 miles of roadway that we're cleaning after a storm event.
Yes.
Yeah, incredible.
Yes, it is.
Anything we need to know up here about the equipment?
We'll take a look at a different truck and we'll kind of go around that.
What's a plow like this fully outfitted costing?
$200,000.
$200,000.
And how about the tow plow setup?
$180,000, $160,000 right in there.
Just for the attachment?
Yep, just for the attachment.
It's got to go run behind one of these.
That's why we have to take special care of these trucks for what we have them and keep them maintained.
How long, if we've got, I mean, the shop looks spectacular.
It's clean.
It looks like, I mean, the...
It's cleaner than any car I saw on the street driving over here.
So there's obviously big dedication to maintenance on this?
Very much so, yeah.
All our drivers are dedicated to their vows and their trucks.
And what's the lifespan of one of these vehicles?
We keep these trucks, I believe, 10 years.
And over that time frame, by the time you've traded in some of the vehicles, you've been how many miles on those?
Depends on the driver, lots.
Lots of hours, lots of miles.
And then how about, you're saying we're doing less of the, putting any aggregate out the back end, but when I drove in I still see some big sheds over here that are full of material.
We're using a little bit more salt.
We're actually coloring the salt with ash so the public knows we're putting something down.
And we have different formulas for different temperatures what we put out there.
And moving away from the sand, because the sand just isn't effective, right?
Because the sand doesn't melt anything and doesn't...
Just traction, as all sand was ever used for.
You know, some traction.
And that's what we're using the ash for.
Yep.
Because the ash in with the salt gives you a little bit of traction.
Yep.
Does that ash come from, is that a byproduct from here in North Dakota?
Yes, it is.
It actually comes from the plant up in the center.
Oh, nice.
Yeah, and we don't pay anything for it.
We get it for free.
We like that, too.
Yeah, you bet.
Absolutely.
After a little bit too much fun talking about road miles and horsepower, Doug and Craig were finally ready to hit the road.
Smile there, Craig.
Here we go.
They're looking for you.
We have our pre-trip before we take off.
We turn our lights on.
We check that all before we leave.
Our lights and stuff.
I got them all on now.
This is our 6100 here.
This is how we calibrate our salt and stuff in pounds.
We can do that all from here.
So if I go to 200, I've been putting down 200 pounds per lane mile.
We can calibrate that all through these controls right here on our handle.
Here's our controls for our plow.
Sideways.
And these controls are here.
You can do different things than this here.
You can control your mix and your aggregate.
And it shows you the road temperature, air temperature.
So how does it track the road temperature?
There's a sensor right over here in the mirror now.
Right there's a sensor.
And then that helps you decide on your mix and all that.
And then this is the pounds per mile that you're spreading?
Pounds per lane mile, yeah.
Then you said when we were doing the walk-around, you said you can do pounds per square foot or pounds per square inch of pressure down, like on the underbelly.
Is that a separate readout for that?
That is a separate readout, and that is on that screen also.
Okay, all right.
A lot of the trucks have a dial down here, a liquid-filled dial, but these don't.
Their hands keep awful busy.
I imagine when you started 33 years ago, you were...
Clutching and double clutching and shifting and doing all that and trying to run a blade up and down.
We were having a little discussion in the break room with the ladies and stuff there.
We told them how long I was with the DOT. When I first started, I had a 74 international gas engine motor with a two-speed axle.
And to start my sander, I'd start my sander with a gas motor in the shop.
I'd have to roll my window down and pull a handle.
To rev up that gas motor with a clutch, a clutch to start the auger.
That's how I said it.
It's because it's coming such a long ways.
I mean, it's just crazy.
Yeah, they couldn't believe that.
That's the way it worked.
That's the way it worked.
We used to take gobs and gobs of hairspray and spray the coil, the cap, and the wires.
Because, of course, the gas motor would always get wet.
I mean, you'd be bucking snow, and the truck would start missing.
Well, you knew it was wet.
So we had a record snowfall in this area a few years ago.
You must have been busy that winter.
We were very busy, yeah.
At that time, that morning, nobody could get to work.
And one gentleman got to work with his snowmobile and started picking people up and started getting plows out.
They actually come to my home with a snowplow to get me out of my house.
That's how we got people to work that day.
It worked out.
You know, we got as many people as we could get to work.
That's where you are, buddy.
Most of the drivers today that work for the state probably also, are they driving a four-wheel drive pickup to work?
Just about everybody, yeah.
Some of them have a blade on the front of their pickup too because they just can't get enough of it?
No, there's not many of those.
No, I don't think anybody ever has that.
I know where we all go when we go to the NDDOT app.
Do you folks look at the same app?
We have some different things we look at.
One is called MDSS. It's a five-state deal put together by UND, I believe.
It tells us the road conditions, road temperatures, and it gives us different scenarios of what's going to happen that day and that time.
Like, say there's going to be a frost on the Grant Marsh Bridge, it'll tell us what time the frost is supposed to be on the bridge.
It's just another tool in the toolbox.
We do a lot of forecasting with, you know, different weather stations, stuff like that.
And as far as the road reports, of course, our operators give the road reports.
We have iPads in our trucks now.
We'll delegate one operator, say, off of my crew, we'll delegate one operator to give him the iPad in the morning at 4.30 in the morning.
He goes out, my other drivers go out, and then they get back to him with the information after they've driven the road for several miles.
And that's how we determine the road reports.
We'll do that.
We try to update as many times as we can during the day.
And now it's even going into the evening hours, which is nice.
And I can't remember the last, how many people, I mean, that app gets used a lot.
People really rely on that app.
And that's a really nice thing.
Yeah, when I ask people when I go around the city, I go, how many of you have a smartphone?
Everybody raises their hand.
I go, how many of you, you know, I've got more than 50 apps.
Everybody raises their hand.
I said, how many of you have got...
You know, any apps from North Dakota and then a few hands go up and I go, which app is it?
It's always the NDGOT app.
So it's the one we're starting to get some traction on, so to speak.
Yeah, exactly.
So you've had, over all these years, you know, you get I don't want to use the word loosely, but crazy drivers.
You get people that are around you when you're trying to do your job and protect public safety and move snow.
What advice would you have for drivers who are interacting with the professionals that are out trying to clean our highways across North Dakota?
Well, I guess number one, don't use your cruise control.
Keep your cruise control off.
Number two, put your cell phone away.
Put your cell phone away.
And give us some room.
We need space out there.
If we're plowing in the left-hand lane, say we're out in 94, we're going eastbound from New Salem, we're in the left-hand lane, and there's snow fog behind us from plowing that lane, we're not going to pull over or slow down because we don't know what's behind us.
Stay behind us as far as you know.
A couple thousand feet, if not more.
Don't come out and try and go around us.
So when we say don't crowd the plow, we're not talking about a hundred feet.
We're talking about thousands of feet.
Right.
Because you don't know what you're going to run into.
You don't know when you're going to have a visibility, lack of visibility.
And a lot of times when there's not much snow fog and you're in the passing lane, for sure are you in the passing lane or are you in the driving lane?
Are you going to come around us and we're going to be in that lane over there?
Are you going to hit us?
Yeah.
That's happened several times.
Yeah.
So is this the patience?
Patience.
Well, you'll get there.
Patience is a very nice.
So when you're running multiple vehicles like that, is it...
Do you have a...
Is there an established order for who's the lead pilot?
Take some of our more experienced drivers and put them out front and have the rest, you know, do the cleanup.
You know, after you work with these guys for a while, you know who can do what and who likes to do what and who's scared of what.
Like I always tell my guys, if you think it's not going to work or you think you're going to fail or it scares you, don't do it.
It doesn't pay to get hurt.
We'll find somebody that can do it.
Just give me a slow down here a little bit, give me an idea of what it sounds like when you put this plow down.
Now, back in the day, 30 some years ago, when I was plowing snow, you had to wear coveralls and a stocking 30 some years ago, when I was plowing snow, you had It had to be pretty bundled up in these trucks, so it was kind of pretty cold.
But now you can actually take your jacket off and relax.
Is that worse, I mean, for you and the other drivers, is the scariest thing, that freezing rain, is that worse than a snowstorm or a lot of snow?
Yeah, it compares to a white-out blizzard because it's a white-knuckle deal.
It's hard to drive.
There's been times when I've backed up hills and backed around corners, standing, driving down my own sand itself.
Oh, you couldn't do that?
Yeah.
Wow.
So I can get someplace.
Yes.
I've actually left the shop in Wyshek a few times.
I'd drive out of the shop and have to turn my salt and sand on and back out of our driveway.
Because we either went down a hill by Wyshek or we went up a hill.
I was going to say, you got west of Wyshek there, you got some pretty good hills.
Yeah, we do.
I guess in 33 years, you must have, when you found this and started doing it, you found something you really enjoyed.
It's always been the people and the public.
I mean, a lot of people will say different, but, you know, and I've been to Bismarck now six years, and we have 21 guys working, and it's the people.
We've become kind of like a family.
You know, you spend more time with the guys at work than I do with my family at home, if you think about it now.
And that's just the way it is.
Well, the podcast, which we've just started, is called Work Worth Doing.
Okay.
After...
Teddy Roosevelt's famous quote, which is the great prize in life is an opportunity to work hard at work worth doing.
And so this is one of my first episodes.
I want to get out here with you and really represent all the plow drivers because I think about work worth doing.
There's a lot of jobs in the state of North Dakota that's work worth doing and this certainly is one of them, certainly an important one.
As spring comes and the snow melts away, the plows will be put in the shed until next winter and the DOT will get started on a new season of summer road maintenance.
But the DOT is working on far more than just business as usual.
New technology is transforming the way citizens interact with the agency, while innovations in transportation, like unmanned aerial systems, are pushing our state forward.
Advancements in technology will help keep the motoring public safer.
This constant effort to make our roads safer is what led Governor Burgum, along with the DOT, Highway Patrol, and the Department of Health, to launch Vision Zero in January 2018. Vision Zero is all about a simple question.
What's the acceptable number of fatalities on our roadways?
The only answer is zero.
And since research shows that 94% of motor vehicle crashes can be attributed to preventable human behavior, Vision Zero is also about zero excuses.
116 people died in motor vehicle crashes in North Dakota in 2017.
Improved technology, combined with a shift in our culture, can help make our state a safer place for everyone.
I know that not just in snow and ice control, but across a lot of things, whether it's construction, traffic management, a lot of technology is emerging in the whole transportation field. a lot of technology is emerging in the whole transportation
You mentioned autonomous, but talk a little bit about some ideas where the future might be going, about the conference you had this last year, and how you see these technological advances working today and tomorrow in NDDOT. Yeah, you know, you're absolutely right.
There's a ton of disruptive technologies in our world right now that are transforming the way we look at things.
And it's not just the technology, but it's the philosophy that goes with them as well.
Drones is one big aspect of what we're involved with today.
You know, we had the great honor of being designated a U.S. DOT Integrated Pilot Program, and we're working with industry folks.
We're working with the test site on how we can integrate drones into our daily operations.
I believe there's an application for Vision Zero here and there.
We're looking at drones to help us with bridge inspections.
We're already doing some survey work with drones and LIDAR. So that's at the forefront of our mind, how we're going to use those in our operations.
Autonomous vehicles is clearly at the forefront of everybody's thinking.
From a safety perspective, I believe there's a lot of connected vehicle opportunities where our infrastructure can communicate with our vehicles and communicate information through Bluetooth technology.
We're exploring those.
We're looking at autonomous snowplow operations to be shadow vehicles in our work zones.
We're looking at electric vehicles.
Those are transforming how we're looking at our vehicle fleets across the state.
The list goes on and on.
But I do believe that there's a philosophy that goes with these.
If you look at, particularly in a lot of our urban areas, small and large, you know, there's mobility patterns that are changing.
Scooters are a big part of our mobility now, and I don't care where you are, it's part of it.
We look at Waze, an app that helps us with traffic management.
The public's providing input into that.
That's a different model for us.
But there's all kinds of philosophies and technologies that are changing transportation around the country, around the world.
And I'm excited that North Dakota's part of that discussion.
Well, it's exciting to hear and it'll be great for North Dakota to be leading with autonomous both in the air and on the ground.
In addition to transportation technology, I know there's a number of information technology projects that you and your team are trying to advance in terms of how the DOT interacts with citizens.
Right.
One of the biggest things to help us is that we've got to get some of our systems off the mainframe and into the cloud and we're working on that.
That's pretty basic stuff.
The kiosks are a key part of what we're doing in the future, and honestly, I think that's just a transitional step.
While it's very effective now and it's truly great technology, I think what we're trying to get to at a point in time in the future is the fact that If we have our technology all aligned, a person can come in once and be registered to do anything they want to do and they would come in once to an office and get their driver's license or conduct one transaction and then they wouldn't have to touch us physically anymore in the future.
You know, we would use technology to process any transaction they may need to have.
And then let's talk also a little bit about Vision Zero, which was launched last year.
But why is this the right goal for North Dakota and what's behind it?
I know you're very passionate about Vision Zero, but share with us your story.
Vision Zero is something that's really taken hold in the entire country, actually.
I had the great honor of trying to develop a national strategic strategy for Vision Zero when I was with Federal Highway, and we launched that nationally.
And there's over 30 states that have a Vision Zero program.
There are a lot of urban areas, New York City, Austin, Texas, and others that have a Vision Zero approach as well.
From my perspective, it's the only way that you're going to reduce fatalities and serious injuries in a complex environment where you have multiple agencies, multiple stakeholders, and it's a collaborative approach to get those numbers to push downward.
The only goal is zero.
And so vision zero makes sense.
And I know people have talked to me many, many times about the goal being unrealistic.
You'll never get there.
But I believe we can.
I'm passionate about that.
And I wouldn't be here if I didn't believe it.
And I think the best way to articulate that goal is to equate it to your family.
And if you were to ask anybody in your family what's a good goal for a family, they're not going to say one, two, three.
They're not going to say that.
They're going to say zero.
And so if you put it in that perspective and personalize it, zero is the only goal for all of us.
And so that's why we're working hard at this.
And you're correct, I'm super passionate about it.
And I believe through these collaborative approaches and through technology that we will get to zero someday.
And I think North Dakota is in a great position to be the first state to get to zero.
Well, that would be an incredible achievement for us because right now I think we're averaging around how many fatalities a year.
We spiked during the oil boom around 170. Last year we ended up at 105. Previous years we're about 116, 17 in that range.
So we reduced it this year and I I believe Vision Zero had an impact in the short time we've been doing this in the past year to get those numbers down.
Well, it would be fun to see those numbers get to zero because every one of those means a loss of a family member to somebody, somebody's son or daughter, somebody's mom or dad or brother or sister, and so every one of those is a tragedy and many can be prevented.
But I also think just to help people aspire is, you know, can we go a week?
Can we go a month?
I mean, it would be great to start this year if we can chalk up four weeks in a row without one.
And so I think everybody that's listening gets a chance to be part of this goal.
And you're absolutely correct with that.
With our Vision Zero approach, we're trying to hold everybody accountable.
Everybody is accountable.
It's not just public agencies.
It's not just the DOT. We're working in partnership with Health and Highway Patrol, but it's all of us.
It's very personal, and we all have to be accountable.
The North Dakota Department of Transportation is working every day to make North Dakota safer and to shape the future of transportation.
Approximately 1,000 people from engineers, operators, and mechanics to economists, attorneys, and accountants come to work for DOT every day in all corners of the state.
Interested in being part of the team?
Go to dot.nd.gov to learn more.
On our next episode of Work Worth Doing, we'll catch up with Melissa Baker, Director of the North Dakota Parks and Recreation Department, to talk about the beautiful natural resources in our state and how parks are a key part of healthy, vibrant communities.
That's all for today.
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