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Workers in construction and transportation sectors are at increased risk for work-related injuries and fatalities by nearby traffic. Barricade-mounted warning lights meeting current specifications do not always provide consistent and adequate visual guidance to drivers and can contribute to glare and reduced safety. Through an implementation of sensors and wireless communications, a novel, intelligent set of warning lights and a tablet-based interface were developed. The lights modulate between 100% and 10% of maximum intensity rather than between 100% and off in order to improve visual guidance and adjust their overall intensity based on ambient conditions. The lights can be synchronized or operated in sequential flash patterns at any frequency between 1 and 4 Hz, and sequential patterns automatically update based on global positioning satellite (GPS) locations displayed in the control interface.

Flashing lights on emergency and maintenance vehicles should be critical components to alerting, informing and managing drivers as they navigate around work zones, vehicle accidents and other roadway emergency incident scenes. These vehicles often also use distinctive colors and markings to identify the type of vehicle and potentially provide drivers with information about the nature of the incident they are approaching. In order to begin to understand how these elements (flashing lights and vehicle/marking colors) contribute to perception, a study was carried out in which participants viewed pairs of roadway scenes using scale model vehicles and lights adjusted to produce similar apparent intensities as full-scale lighting systems. In some cases the colors of the flashing lights were coordinated with those of the vehicle and its reflective markings, and in other cases the colors were not coordinated.