The U.S. Department of Transportation Releases Version 2 of the Work Zone Data Exchange Specification

The U.S. Department of Transportation recently released version 2 of the Work Zone Data Exchange (WZDx) Specification, which enables infrastructure owners and operators (IOOs) to make harmonized work zone data available for third-party use. The WZDx Specification is intended to make travel on public roads safer and more efficient through ubiquitous access to data on work zone activity.

BACKGROUND

In 2019, the  Work Zone Data Working Group (WZDWG) was established under the Federal Geographic Data Committee Transportation Subcommittee to develop version 2 of the WZDx Specification based on lessons learned from version 1.1 and new insights from the user community. The WZDWG spent the latter half of 2019 encouraging discussion on the WZDx GitHub site, identifying and prioritizing changes to the WZDx Specification for version 2, and holding meetings with data producers and users representing various constituencies across the work zone ecosystem (e.g., IOOs) to review proposed changes for version 2 of the specification.

WZDx SPECIFICATION VERSION 2 CHANGES

The proposed changes passed by a majority vote of the WZDWG in December 2019 and were merged into the specification to form WZDx version 2, which was released this past week. The following changes were made to the WZDx Specification:

  • Adopted a relational data model approach to eliminate nested tables and make the specification more scalable
  • Required feeds to be published in GeoJSON to facilitate data consumption and use
  • Simplified road closure impact reporting to indicate whether a road is partially closed, fully closed, or fully open
  • Captured lane-level restrictions (when available) to specify work zone impacts for each lane of a roadway

FOR MORE INFORMATION

Version 2 of the WZDx Specification and a link to release notes can be found on the WZDx version 2 release page

For additional information about the WZDx Specification, refer to the working group's GitHub wiki page and the WZDx website.

If you are interested in joining the WZDWG and/or contributing to the specification development conversation, please email avdx@dot.gov.

1/16/20