The Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) recently has taken proactive measures to improve response time and accuracy when repairing damaged traffic signals.
Calls concerning damaged or dysfunctional traffic signals often happen during the night and during bad weather. Occasionally, the fixes are easy, but sometimes electricians need further details to repair the traffic signal.
In the past, electricians and traffic and safety engineers with MDOT used paper copies of signal documents that are kept in cabinets. When the lights need repairs, the crews use these documents for schematics on the mechanisms involved and the proper timing for the signal.
Unfortunately, these paper copies at times have been damaged by weather or eaten by mice. On other occasions, crews could not determine which documents were the most up to date. Online programs — including ProjectWise, SafeStat and MDOT’s internal server — could not be easily accessed.
The entire process wasted time and energy, so centralizing the location of this essential information was seen as the best solution.
Now crews use QR codes on mobile devices to pull up the latest signal data from the Michigan Transportaiton Map, through a single database. After printing and laminating these codes, leaders distributed them throughout all 106 MDOT sites in Cheboygan, Emmet, Antrim, Charlevoix, Crawford, Ogemaw, Otsego and Roscommon counties.
Now crews can access signal data in a matter of seconds.
