PHOENIX – With approximately 150 state highway construction projects scheduled to start in any given year, Arizona Department of Transportation engineers constantly look for ways to save time and money in designing and building these much-needed improvements.

Over the past two years, this focus has had ADOT engineers teaming with engineering colleagues from the private sector to speed how projects are designed by improving the process that gets the work started. This includes issuing task orders, or contracts, to private engineering firms that will be preparing the technical construction plans for upcoming projects.

As a result of this collaboration, ADOT has been able to reduce the time needed to issue a task order from approximately 150 days to an average of 50 or fewer days.

“Improving project delivery is a major priority for us,” said Steve Boschen, who leads ADOT’s Infrastructure Delivery and Operations division. “Our review and simplification of the process will help keep future highway construction projects on schedule.”

ADOT manages a highway construction program that often has more than $900 million in work underway each year, so improvements in this area help improve the quality of life in Arizona through more timely improvements to the transportation system.

This is National Engineers Week, organized by the National Society of Professional Engineers to promote understanding of and interest in engineering and technology careers. At ADOT, engineering is behind every activity that maintains, improves and expands the state’s transportation system, from rehabilitating bridges to paving highways and creating the Loop 202 South Mountain Freeway. Common to all those engineering efforts is a commitment to continuous improvement.

To improve the task-order process, ADOT used the Arizona Management System championed by Governor Doug Ducey to assemble a team that included consultant engineers to identify both waste and opportunities.

Consultant engineers have praised the time-saving effort.

“Several tools were created to speed the process, including checklists, simplified forms and ways to monitor the task-order process,” said Randy Simpson, a professional engineer who is vice president with the firm AECOM. “As a member of the Arizona engineering consultant community, I appreciate the opportunity this effort provided to improve the way our industry delivers transportation infrastructure improvements.”

A faster start for project design is especially important when construction schedules are moved up. That’s been the case in Maricopa County, where a rebalancing of transportation tax revenue has allowed regional planners to advance the number of Phoenix-area freeway projects that will be under construction by 2020.

Accelerated projects include adding lanes along Loop 101 between I-17 and Princess Drive as well as along Interstate 10 between Verrado Way and State Route 85. Both widening projects are now scheduled to start by 2019, rather than well after 2020.

“We count on our engineers and the entire team at ADOT to get the most out of the investment taxpayers are making in projects that make travel more efficient and, most importantly, safer,” ADOT Director John Halikowski said. “Accelerating projects is a priority as our engineers team with partners in law enforcement and highway safety to make travel as safe as possible.”

PHOENIX – It just became easier to do business with the Arizona Department of Transportation Motor Vehicle Division, and more enhancements are on the way.

For the first time ever, customers can now set up an online personalized account to manage all their MVD needs through the new AZ MVD Now portal, which is accessible through ServiceArizona.com.

“This is just the tip of the iceberg,” said MVD Director Eric Jorgensen. “AZ MVD Now works like having an account with an online retailer. This will revolutionize how people do business with MVD much like people’s shopping habits have been transformed by the internet. This will open the door to maximize the number of MVD transactions done online. Right now that number is a little more than half, but eventually most will be available through AZ MVD Now.”

“Among the first major improvements we will unveil sometime in 2018 is allowing customers to transfer titles online, which will make it much easier for people to buy and sell vehicles without having to do paperwork at a physical location,” he added.

The current ServiceArizona.com method for conducting individual, point-in-time transactions remains in place, but AZ MVD Now, which represents the ongoing implementation of the Arizona Management System championed by Gov. Doug Ducey, provides a higher level of individualized service, including:

• Create an account: AZ MVD Now allows you to manage your interactions with MVD. All of the vehicles titled and/or registered in your name are associated with the account.
• Fund the account: When paying at an MVD office or online, you can still use a traditional form of payment such as debit, credit or EFT. Or you may pay with funds in your new financial account.
• Issue a prepaid voucher: This functions like a store credit and allows flexibility of who pays for transactions.
• View a title: A vehicle owner can see full title details on vehicles they own. Additionally, there is a limited view where a citizen can look up a vehicle to confirm the vehicle is eligible for transfer.

Jorgensen noted, “Arizona’s MVD is among the first motor vehicle agencies in the U.S. to adopt this technology that will make it easier for MVD to fulfill its vision to get Arizona out of line and safely on the road.”

NOGALES – Drivers in Mexico who have completed innovative safety instruction offered by the Arizona Department of Transportation are proving far less likely to be flagged for safety violations when their vehicles arrive at international ports of entry.

It’s a dramatic improvement that’s saving international carriers time and money, making Arizona roads safer and helping Arizona better appeal to drivers who might otherwise use ports in California or Texas.

In December, the 106 drivers with International Border Inspection Qualification training who entered the U.S. through commercial ports operated by ADOT’s Enforcement and Compliance Division did so without a safety violation that required taking their trucks out of service for repairs.

Since August when the program began training drivers in Mexico, just two of 667 qualified drivers – 0.3 percent – have entered Arizona with a violation that required immediate repairs. The rate is about 5 percent among other commercial drivers using ADOT’s international ports.

Through ADOT’s International Border Inspection Qualification, the first such program in the U.S., Enforcement and Compliance Division inspectors made eight trips into Mexico in 2017 to educate international truck drivers and company leaders about safety requirements for trucks driving on Arizona roads. More training is scheduled in Mexico for 2018, including three sessions  in February.

“This outstanding program has been great both for Arizona and for our neighbors in Sonora,” ADOT Director John Halikowski said. “In addition to making roads across Arizona safer, we are reducing inspection times and making Arizona’s international ports more appealing to commercial carriers.”

The class has the support of Sonora Gov. Claudia Pavlovich and Mexican trucking leaders.

ADOT inspectors check every commercial truck entering the U.S. at Nogales, Douglas and San Luis for safety violations. The most serious violations require that trucks remain at the port of entry until repairs can be made, a costly process that can cause significant delays for commercial carriers.

In addition, drivers who complete the International Border Inspection Qualification can use the Whats App smartphone app to contact inspectors with questions before they approach the border. That allows companies to make needed repairs more economically before drivers get on the road.

Another benefit of the program: More drivers are choosing to enter the U.S. through Arizona’s ports instead of those in other states. Meanwhile, being able to focus on higher-risk vehicles has allowed ADOT officers to find more violations despite needing to conduct fewer high-level inspections.

“More trucks entering the country in Arizona means an even greater boost to our economy,” Halikowski said. “Those drivers use more services and buy more items in our state, which helps not only border communities but all of Arizona.”

The International Border Inspection Qualification program stems from ADOT’s use of the Arizona Management System championed by Gov. Doug Ducey. This approach to continuous improvement empowers employees at state agencies to come up with innovative ways to better serve customers.

PHOENIX – After asphalt lanes get a rejuvenating seal designed to reduce cracking and extend the life of pavement, an innovation by Arizona Department of Transportation employees allows crews to reopen freeways faster.

Using scrap metal, ADOT maintenance workers fashioned what’s essentially a reverse stencil – a diamond-shaped template that keeps the oil-based seal off of white HOV markings within lanes. They also designed a metal arm to lift and transport the template from one HOV diamond to the next.

While applying the seal doesn’t affect lane striping, HOV markers within lanes once had to be repainted before a freeway could reopen. In addition to shortening the full closures required to apply the seal, saving the time and money needed to repaint HOV markings adds up to $310 for each diamond.

According to Mark Kilian, an ADOT highway operations technical supervisor, using the reverse stencil usually involves two trucks, each transporting and placing one template. This process improvement, he said, is designed to better serve drivers, who are ADOT’s customers.

“We had a major interstate shut down, and we wanted to make sure we can get it open as soon as possible, so we have to be as efficient as possible,” Kilian said.

This innovation is another example of ADOT’s commitment to continuous improvement through the Arizona Management System (AMS) championed by Governor Doug Ducey. AMS challenges all employees to identify and develop ways to deliver more value for taxpayers.

“Every time that we are successful at something like this,” Kilian said, “it gives us even more motivation to go out and find new innovation and ideas to help us make processes easier.”

For more information on ADOT’s culture of continuous improvement, visit azdot.gov.