During these uncertain times, the construction industry is still considered an "essential service" but that means social distancing will still need to be observed as much as possible. Many contractors still use paper tickets at the scale house, but hand-offs will likely look different for quite a while. With more and more states requiring the use of Electronic Ticketing, now is the time to consider investing.
E-ticketing is an electronic means of producing individual scale tickets and providing material haul summaries for state-funded roadway projects and it continues to evolve and gain traction among state highway transportation officials and HMA contractors.
The E-Ticketing capabilities of our Materials Management Solution (MMS) have been tested and approved by several state DOT's since 2016 with excellent results and Scale Ticket Integration is now one of the features that our MMS customers use the most. Our Mobile App allows for easy access of scale tickets from anywhere in the field, all while keeping a safe six feet of distance.
To date, Earthwave Technologies has partnered with agencies in more than 13 states over a four- year period by providing a turnkey solution to alleviate the challenges and burdens associated with collecting paper tickets. State transportation officials in Alabama, Iowa, Kentucky, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia and more can all testify to departmental efficiency gains and job site safety improvements in work zones from the use of our E-ticketing software. For more information visit our E-Ticketing Page.
Below is a Spotlight on Alabama E-Ticketing Projects in 2017 and 2018 that used FleetWatcher.
In Alabama alone, ALDOT selected four sizable projects totaling more than 65,000 tons of HMA to pilot our software and were more than pleased with the results. Two of the projects were awarded to Midsouth Paving, Inc., and two were awarded to Wiregrass Construction Company, Inc.
Project Name: STPAA-HSIP-0245(501)
County: Butler
Description: 2.899 miles of Safety Widening, Planing, Resurfacing, Bridge Rail Retrofit, and Traffic Stripe
Location: On SR-245 from the Junction of SR-10 to the Junction of SR-185 in Greenville (Site 1) and on SR-10 from just west of the Junction of College Street to the Junction of Bolling Street in Greenville (Site 2)
Contractor: Midsouth Paving, Inc.
Total HMA: 11,940 tons
Project Name: STPNU-HSIP-0052(514) & HSIP-0167(510)
County: Geneva
Description: 8.600 miles of Safety Widening, Planing, Resurfacing, and Traffic Stripe
Location: On SR-52 from the East City Limits of Geneva to the Intersection of SR-167 in Hartford to include the Scoring of Paved Safety Shoulders on SR-167 from the Florida State Line to the Junction of SR-123 in Hartford.
Contractor: Wiregrass Construction Company, Inc.
Total HMA: 18,050 tons
Project Name: NH-HSIP-0009(552)
County: Crenshaw
Description: 10.084 miles of Safety Widening, Planing, Resurfacing, and Traffic Stripe
Location: On SR-9 (US-331) from the Covington County Line to approximately one mile north of the South City Limits of Brantley.
Contractor: Wiregrass Construction Company, Inc.
Total HMA: 19,632 tons
Project Name: IM-I065(489)
County: Conecuh
Description: 11.445 miles of Planing, Resurfacing, and Traffic Stripe
Location: On I-65 from north of Murder Creek Bridge in Evergreen to the Butler County Line.
Contractor: Midsouth Paving, Inc.
Total HMA: 16,094 tons
What were the final thoughts? Skip Powe, P.E. State Construction Engineer of ALDOT, weighs in.
"ALDOT started these pilots as part of our e-Construction initiative to go paperless. We currently have 274 iPads for our 394 state project personnel, which does not include our consultant inspectors. Like many other states, our inspection personnel numbers have been dwindling over the last decade or more, so we are trying to do more with less.
E-Ticketing, if fully implemented, opens the door to possibly providing one less inspector on the project, which would be the traditional ticket-taker. The traditional laydown or mat inspector could monitor the truck delivery and e-Ticket with his/her iPad from the laydown operation. The inspector can acknowledge the truck on the e-Ticket by noting his/her name (which we require on the paper ticket), can note the delivery temperature, and can even note the station of the load in addition to the location information provided by the system. This a huge benefit to us by reducing a person and by putting all our information in a database and report that can be utilized later.
In addition, lost paper tickets would be a thing of the past. By having all the tickets electronically with a daily summary report, lost tickets go away, which minimizes quantity disputes at monthly estimate processing and concurrence of final quantities. This also means that the tickets and summary reports are available to those not on the site such as Area Administrators and Engineers. Thus, they can monitor progress from the home office.
E-ticketing also enhances our safety initiative. If no one is collecting paper tickets anymore, an inspector is removed from being next to traffic collecting the ticket. As we all know, this is a hazardous place to be jammed in between the truck and traffic. To get there, the inspector has to be standing next to traffic all along or else has to walk between dump trucks or between a dump truck and a spreader to get there. Safety professionals everywhere agree that this location is where more accidents happen on the jobsite. Back-overs are a major risk, and E-ticketing can minimize that exposure.
Like any other new initiative that is in the pilot or experimental stage, we are in a learning curve for our personnel becoming familiar with the system and its capability and with getting more contractors to utilize it. However, we have been very pleased so far with the four pilot projects and look forward to trying more statewide."
