New Traffic Management Office Elevates Traffic Control Services
Already North America’s leading traffic control company, AWP Safety is transforming the industry through its technology, scale and portfolio. The company is innovating a new traffic control management approach that improves safety and cost certainty for large broadband, utility and road infrastructure companies.
Q: what is a “Traffic management Office”?
It’s inspired by the concept of a Program Management Office (PMO), which many organizations create to centrally manage strategic projects. The purpose of a Traffic Management Office (TMO) is similar in that it enables AWP Safety to serve large, complex customers more strategically. These customers have demanding traffic control requirements across several regions, states or business divisions, which they often manage locally and disparately. This can lead to work delays and budget misses. With our TMO, we work with these customers to look at their traffic control needs holistically.
Q: How does the TMO set AWP Safety apart from other traffic control providers?
Often, the value proposition of a traffic control partner is a specific product or service, like flagging or barricades. AWP Safety’s differentiator is the technology we use to plan, forecast and generate business insights for customers that result in safer, more compliant and more cost-effective work sites. We ask ourselves, and our customers, how can we integrate our planning, delivery and closeout processes so we can all work more efficiently? The TMO allows us to have those conversations at any level of a customer’s organization. We’ve already helped reduce cost-per mile and improve traffic control budgeting for Lumos, a broadband provider expanding fiber-optic networks in multiple states.
Q: What benefits can AWP Safety customers expect from the TMO?
Our overall value proposition is elevating safety while contributing to our customers’ growth and financial health. The TMO helps us achieve this by focusing on five key areas.
The first is planning and scheduling. We strongly believe that traffic control should be the first call a customer makes, not the last. When traffic control experts have a seat at the planning table, it helps construction delivery crews work more efficiently and avoid errors that at worst, risk lives and at best, cost money. For example, does the work require permits? What’s required to get the permit? How long will it take? All of that impacts work schedules and can cause delays or necessitate overtime if not planned for in advance.
That plays into three other areas: engineering, permitting and safe execution. Engineering and permitting are about being proactive. We ensure complex projects have safe, accurate traffic control plans, and worksites are permitted correctly so work can start on time. On work day, our field teams set up worksites that deliver on quality, safety and compliance so customers can focus on their work. Because of our investment in digital technologies, we’re leading the industry in governance and reporting. We track, analyze and share data that helps customers make more informed decisions about their traffic control needs and internal operations. For instance, Lumos relies on multiple fiber subcontractors to expand their network, and those subs know their jobs in their areas. As Lumos’s preferred traffic control partner, we are the ones that have a complete view of what’s happening across every worksite. We can streamline our own delivery, and even identify where subcontractors can streamline theirs, based on what we observe.
Finally, we add value to our customers’ financial processes. The TMO oversees accurate, timely and customized billing to streamline accounting processes.
Q: Can you share an example of how the TMO has helped a customer make a more informed business decision?
Absolutely. In reviewing data, we recently found that one electric utility provider was cancelling 20% of their jobs with us. Through collaborative planning, we discovered that some of the customer’s teams were over-scheduling line crews to ensure they would have enough workers to complete work on any given day. It revealed two opportunities: improving the customer’s own scheduling practices, and helping them avoid cancellation fees with us by not over-scheduling traffic control.
We helped another utility provider save money by changing the way they approach grid hardening projects. This type of work requires expensive crane trucks that can cost $1,000 an hour to operate. Our analysis showed that a temporary road closure, which can be the most expensive type of traffic control, is actually the cheapest overall solution because it helps the utility crew complete work and return the equipment more quickly.
Q: How can the TMO help customers meet industry trends?
Increases in government infrastructure spending means that infrastructure work is heating up. It’s more important than ever that companies work as efficiently as possible. We can help them do that, like we’re doing currently with Ervin Cable Construction, LLC. We’re protecting Ervin Cable crews as they complete a multi-year project for Ubiquity Group to deliver high-speed internet and more consumer choices in Arizona, California, Nebraska and Texas.
It’s a complex project with different traffic control needs across multiple municipalities. Backed by our TMO, the project has a dedicated AWP Safety project manager, field supervisor and billing specialist. This setup has resulted in more efficient work, real-time troubleshooting and better traffic flow on busy city streets. It is AWP Safety’s capabilities, such as the TMO, that will help keep critical projects like this moving forward.
You can learn more about how AWP Safety helps customers keep pace with trends in infrastructure in this Q&A with Daniel Latta, vice president of sales.
Interested in leveraging AWP Safety for your next project? Learn more about AWP Safety consulting services.
