Tuesday Topics offer fast, free information to advance roadway safety

Each one of us relies on a wide variety of informational sources every day to help us stay in tune and on top of current trends and issues in the roadway safety industry.

Look no further than Twitter’s 140-character limit to see how effective – and how popular – rapid communications is among the masses.

Short tweets, concise emails, scanning multiple sources on the web, texts and more – it seems everyone today wants the bottom line fast.

ATSSA is keeping up with that trend, and most recently took the typical 1990’s-era, 90-plus minute long standard “Webinar” and revitalized and retuned it into a 30-minute compact, live, fast-paced dialogue that has created quite a buzz in the roadway safety industry.

“Our new Tuesday Topics format still includes industry-related information our members are looking for, but we’ve taken it a step further by offering non-traditional topics as well, that will help our members manage and run their businesses more efficiently and more safely,” said Brian Watson, ATSSA’s director of new programs.

The sessions have proven quite popular. Audience sizes are up from the old-school webinar era, and participants are logging in every month, receiving their information quickly, asking questions, and resuming their day to day business operations ‘trained and informed’ in just over 30 minutes. If ATSSA members cannot make a session due to work in the field or other commitments, ATSSA has all Tuesday Topics archived on its website for instant download by any ATSSA member.

The sessions not only focus on traditional topics ATSSA members are accustomed to, they also reach out into new areas outside of the roadway safety realm to help ATSSA members succeed in their businesses.

For example, Watson cited a recent Tuesday Topic that focused on helping ATSSA members protect their businesses by illustrating ways to minimize work zone liabilities from a construction attorney's point of view. Other recent topics have included innovative new roadway safety products, product testing, advancements in sign sheeting technology, intelligent work zones, roadside safety devices specifically for motorcyclists, and autonomous vehicles’ machine vision capabilities on pavement markings.

Several upcoming sessions will be of significant interest to many ATSSA member companies as well.

“Later this fall, Dr. Paul Carlson of Texas A&M’s Transportation Institute, will lead a Tuesday Topic on a new study that examines the effectiveness of six-inch pavement markings versus four-inch markings,” Watson said.

Following each session, all participants are surveyed to obtain their feedback immediately and ATSSA takes their input seriously.

“We have an internal team at ATSSA who meets on a regular basis to plan and schedule these sessions,” said Watson. “This team not only manages the schedule, they make adjustments as necessary, as hot industry topics enter the radar screen.”

Currently, participation in Tuesday Topics is limited to ATSSA members and accessing the archive of previous sessions requires a username and a password. That may change in the future, expanding the audience to others outside of the association who would benefit from the products and services ATSSA member companies offer.

“Several of the topics are worthy of industry-wide discussion that impact roadway safety,” said Watson. “We all share the same goal of reducing the number of fatalities and injuries on our nation’s roadways to zero.”

The website that features all upcoming Tuesday Topics, as well as an archive of previous sessions is located here. You can also reach out to the Tuesday Topics planning team directly by email at TuesdayTopics@atssa.com with your comments, suggestions, or ideas for future Tuesday Topics.