Connecticut DOT introduces new truck to analyze road lines

CONNECTICUT (WTNH) — A new Connecticut Department of Transportation (CTDOT) vehicle is aimed at making highways safer and saving taxpayer dollars.

This new pick-up truck will analyze about 22,000 miles of lanes in the state: looking at yellow lines, white lines and also crosswalks. In addition, the truck will also look at turn marker areas where you go left or right.

“When you’re driving at night and your headlights hit the lines that are on the road, they have to project a minimum amount of light back to the driver so the driver can see where the lanes on the roadway are,” Eric Jackson, executive director of the CTDOT, said.

It looks like an average looking pick-up, but it will instantly measure the remaining life of painted highway lanes in the entire state and how much bright light reflects back to your eyes all by computer.

So, how does it do it?

“It will shine a light out on the roadway and there are sensors or cameras that will actually detect how much light is bouncing back into the sensors,” Jackson said.

The equipment, made up of sensors, cameras and strobes is from Ireland. The cost for the truck and the monitoring equipment is about $200,000.

“It will give us readings and then we can plot that out on a map and we can tell exactly where on the roadway where the lines are not meeting that minimum standard or where they are starting to degrade,” Jackson said.

Before this, the lines would just get re-painted, even if they didn’t need it. That means some of your taxpayer dollars ultimately got wasted. The CTDOT also used to stop traffic to do the measuring and use hand-held devices. Now, the state can get exact numbers on how much paint they need to buy and also better information on when the lines need to be re-painted.

And it’s not the paint that reflects how well you see the lines. It’s tiny glass beads that’s actually mixed into the paint that does it. The transportation institute hopes to have all of this data collected by next spring.

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