Signs

The State of Connecticut s Department of Transportation (ConnDOT) is adapting the videodisc-based system used to photolog its 3,900 miles of highway to the task of inventorying its road signs and supports. ConnDOT personnel designed the resulting Videodisc-based Sign Inventory System (VSIS) to meet three pressing needs:

To protect Connecticut s investment in about 170,000 highway signs valued at more than $50 million. Updating the present fragmented record with special-purpose field trips would be prohibitively expensive and poses safety problems for field crews. ConnDOT needs a flexible, cost-effective, user-friendly system that can be piggybacked onto existing highway inventory systems and can interface with all segments of its computerized record keeping system to maintain a current, easily accessed inventory.

To reduce the growing number of civil lawsuits against the state alleging defective highway signage. According to one study, defective signs figure in 20 percent of tort liability actions and are cited as a main cause in 41 percent of serious crashes.

To meet potential mandates for an integrated highway safety management system proposed by the federal Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act (ISTEA) of 1991.

In a paper entitled Development of the Connecticut Department of Transportation s Videodisc-based Sign Inventory System (VSIS) and presented at the 74th Annual Meeting of the Transportation Research Board (January 1995), Richard C. Hanley described the progress of the new system.

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