Maintenance Department Seeks Patent for New Truck Design

NTTA maintenance staff recently designed, built and implemented a new safety innovation that will better protect employees setting up work zones in active traffic and will decrease traffic backups at the same time.

The NTTA uses large traffic barrels to mark work zones because they are easily visible to motorists. Staff searched for a single truck that would allow workers to both deploy and retrieve the barrels, but none existed. This spurred NTTA maintenance staff to create a truck that enables workers to efficiently place and pick up traffic control devices while also protecting them from passing vehicles.

Lane closure time was significantly reduced and worker safety increased in initial tests of the truck.

Staff filed a patent request for the truck in December 2011. If approved, the NTTA will seek to have the truck mass-produced.

To see a video of the truck, visit the NTTA Safety Truck Demo.