Personnel Updates for Dec. 4 to Dec. 17

December 30, 2015

Information provided by the Office of Employee Services.

Message Monday - Dec. 28, 2015 - Buckle up and smell the roses

December 28, 2015

The rose is a symbol of love and passion. This time of year people are passionate about lots of things. Whether your passion is sharing time with family and friends over the holidays or showing your loyalty by wearing black and gold and gathering with other Hawkeyes to watch the 102^nd Rose Bowl Jan. 1, getting safely to your destination is the first priority.

The single most important safety feature in any vehicle is the seat belt. Taking three seconds to click the belt can mean the difference between life and death.

Stay connected and reach the ones you love. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNnrkaQvOIw

The fatality count of 312 is an increase of seven from last Monday. To see statistics published daily by the Office of Driver Services, go tohttp://bit.ly/1QFbcyj.

GPS/AVL system upgrades improve reliability of data used to make snowfighting decisions

December 23, 2015

The Iowa Department of Transportation’s winter operations depend heavily on data to make decisions of when and how to treat roads. The agency’s snowplow trucks are equipped with sophisticated electronic sensors that measure everything from each vehicle’s engine performance to tracking what materials are being applied to the road.

For the past several years, the Iowa DOT has utilized data gathered from geographic positioning systems (GPS) and automatic vehicle location (AVL) information transmitted from each snowplow truck back to the garage via a cellular connection. This year, the Iowa DOT is upgrading the GPS/AVL system and changing the way data is transmitted from more than half of our 900 snowplow trucks. Updates to technology will turn 520 trucks in central, eastern, and southwest Iowa into Wi-Fi hotspots.

Message Monday - Dec. 21, 2015 - Only Reindeer Can Fly, Watch Your Speed

December 21, 2015

In order to reach roughly 2 billion children (discounting those on the naughty list) each Dec. 24, Santa’s sleigh has to travel really fast. Luckily speed limits don’t apply to nine reindeer pulling a sleigh driven by a rotund man in a red suit. The rest have speed limits in place to keep us all safer on the road.

If you have ever wondered how speed limits are set, here is your answer.

eTicketing show promise of speeding process and improving accuracy at asphalt job sites

December 17, 2015

It seems that most everything is going electronic these days, and for good reason. Going paperless can improve business operations and decrease the amount of resources needed to get the job done. In the highway construction industry, electronic lettings have been standard operating procedure for the Iowa Department of Transportation for years. More recently, the e-Construction process removed time-consuming paper shuffling right up to the point where the asphalt truck arrives at a job site to unload.

“That’s where we’ve hit a snag in the electronic process,” said Greg Mulder, director of the Iowa DOT’s Office of Construction and Materials. “Each truck driver still carries a paper load-out ticket that is collected by the Iowa DOT inspector on the jobsite and used to document the details of the delivery.”

Working with Manatts Inc.’s Ames office, Mulder and his staff recently piloted a “proof of concept” project and developed what they think could be the next step in a paperless, efficient process for documenting asphalt deliveries to highway construction projects.

Message Monday - Dec. 14, 2015 - The force is strong with you. Put the phone down. (and others)

December 14, 2015

‘Tis the season to have a million things going on at once.  Being busy with holiday activities and other things (like maybe a weekend movie date night?), can turn you into a rebel who throws self-control out the window. We can hear the words of a certain Jedi Master who might say, “To the dark side you will go, if you focus not on the road.”

If you are able to use the force to focus on the road, there may be other creatures with attitude issues in vehicles around you. In the spirit of the season – let them win.  

So the next time you hear this song, you’re going to put your phone down and drive calmly – right? https://youtu.be/-bzWSJG93P8

We had so many great suggestions for messages related to the upcoming big movie premier that we couldn’t settle on just one. We’re not going to do this regularly, but as you’re driving today, watch for a variety of messages related to distracted and aggressive driving.

As a side note, if you’re traveling, keep an eye out for other states that also use overhead boards to share valuable safety messages. This week, we’ve coordinated our messages with Utah, Arizona and Colorado. 

The fatality count of 298 is an increase of six from last Monday. To see statistics published daily by the Office of Driver Services, go to http://www.iowadot.gov/mvd/stats/daily.pdf.