PennDOT Announces ‘Innovations Challenge’ Contest

The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT) announced today that students are invited to participate in the sixth annual PennDOT Innovations Challenge, which encourages students to use their problem-solving, creative and strategic-thinking abilities to solve real-world transportation challenges in a competition among their peers. The Innovations Challenge is open to all students in grades 9-12, regardless of their school’s learning model.

For this year’s challenge, students are asked to develop ideas to help address the shortage of commercial truck parking along major interstate corridors in Pennsylvania. Trucks parking on highway shoulders and ramps is common during overnight hours and presents a significant safety issue. As just-in-time deliveries continue to be the mainstay of global business, the demand for truck parking will continue to increase. Federal hours-of-service regulations require more down time for drivers, which translates into an increased demand for truck parking, and many local governments have strict ordinances against overnight truck parking in their communities.

The challenge asks students to select one of Pennsylvania’s interstate corridors where truck parking is a known issue and develop an innovative approach to increase commercial truck parking availability in that area and offset costs incurred for construction. The solution must consider local ordinances and zoning laws for the area selected, commercial entity interaction in land development, community impact, restroom facilities, and space requirements for commercial trucks that are generally 70-80 feet long.

“Pennsylvania is a critical freight corridor, and it’s important that commercial drivers have adequate safe parking along our roadway network,” said PennDOT Secretary Yassmin Gramian. “I’m excited to see the creative ideas that the students bring to this year’s challenge.”

Regional Innovations Challenge winners will be selected and invited to present their solutions to the PennDOT Secretary and a panel of judges, who will determine the statewide winner. For this year’s challenge, the Associated Pennsylvania Constructors (APC) has donated $2,500 and the American Council of Engineering Companies of Pennsylvania (ACEC/PA) has donated $1,500 for a combined total award of $4,000 to the statewide winning team.

“In addition to the challenge itself, we hope that this experience will open students’ minds to the possibility of a career in transportation after graduation, maybe even with PennDOT,” Gramian said.

For complete Innovations Challenge details, visit www.penndot.gov/innovation and click on Innovations Challenge. The submission deadline is Jan. 27, 2023.

PennDOT ‘Innovations Challenge’ Winners Announced

The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT) today announced that a team of students from Monroe Career and Technical Institute in Bartonsville, Monroe County has been selected as the statewide winner for the 2021-2022 Innovations Challenge.

Since last fall, high school students in grades nine through 12 have been working hard to solve this year’s challenge, which asked students to develop a comprehensive and cost-effective public engagement strategy, beyond the current public engagement procedures (outlined in Publication 295) that uses innovative technologies and tools that PennDOT can implement to more effectively engage and connect with all age groups during the transportation planning and project development process. 

“Each year, the PennDOT Innovations Challenge allows us to turn to the next generation of leaders to become an active part of proposing potential solutions to the challenges we face,” said PennDOT Secretary Yassmin Gramian. “I commend all of the students who participated in this year’s challenge for their ingenuity and creativity in developing solutions to this real-world transportation challenge.”

Mentored by Ross Ruschman, the statewide winning team members are Neylla Joseph, Kyle Jarrett, Brittany Ulate-Mora, and Gavin Glukhoy. Their proposed innovative solution was the PaE3 program, which stands for Excite, Educate and Engage. The PaE3 program is an innovative way of using existing technologies to approach the need for communication between PennDOT and its key stakeholders and get citizens involved in PennDOT’s planning and project development process. The program focuses on using existing technologies to approach the need for communication between PennDOT and its key stakeholders, including using map applications like Waze and Google Maps to provide notifications about proposed road work projects, similar to how those sites show accidents and current construction projects.

Now in its fifth year, the Innovations Challenge aims to not only help students explore real transportation challenges that PennDOT is facing, but also open their minds to the very real possibility of working for PennDOT or in the transportation industry after graduation.

For this year’s challenge, the Associated Pennsylvania Constructors (APC) provided $2,500 and the American Council of Engineering Companies of PA (ACEC/PA) provided $1,500 for a combined total award of $4,000 for this year’s first place team.

For complete details, visit the Innovations Challenge webpage at www.penndot.pa.gov.

PennDOT Extends Deadline for ‘Innovations Challenge’

The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT) today announced that the deadline for the fifth annual Innovations Challenge has been extended through Friday, January 21, 2022.

Students in grades 9-12, regardless of their school’s learning model, are invited to participate in this year’s Innovations Challenge, which encourages students to use their problem-solving, creative and strategic-thinking abilities to solve real-world transportation challenges in a competition among their peers.

Taking Pennsylvania’s diverse demographics into consideration, this year’s Innovations Challenge asks students to develop a comprehensive and cost-effective public engagement strategy, beyond the current public engagement procedures (outlined in Publication 295) that uses innovative technologies and tools that PennDOT can implement to more effectively engage and connect with all age groups during the transportation planning and project development process. 

Regional challenge winners will be selected and invited to compete for the state championship, which will be held in spring 2022.

For this year’s challenge, the Associated Pennsylvania Constructors (APC) has donated $2,500 and the American Council of Engineering Companies of PA (ACEC/PA) has donated $1,500 for a combined total award of $4,000 for this year’s first place team.

The Innovations Challenge aims to not only help students explore real transportation challenges that PennDOT is facing, but also open their minds to the very real possibility of working for PennDOT or in the transportation industry after graduation.

For complete details, visit the Innovation Challenge webpage at www.penndot.gov. Again, the submission deadline has been extended through Friday, January 21, 2022.