To keep human flaggers safe, DOT looks to "roboflaggers"

For traffic flaggers on road-construction sites, losing your job to a machine is better than losing your life.

Tuesday, the state Department of Transportation (DOT) began testing an automated flagging system at a construction project on Highway 2 west of Monroe. If successful, it could mean a reduction in the number of flaggers needed for road projects.

That would be a loss, say contract employees associated with the Highway 2 job, but more important, it should reduce the number of deaths and injuries flaggers sustain on road projects as the result of careless or drunken drivers. That's a benefit worth the reduction, they say.

Between 1999 and 2005, there were 47 deaths of transportation workers and people in vehicles in the state and nearly 4,500 injuries. Most at risk out of construction workers were flaggers, state DOT statistics show.

With the machine, there's little risk to humans. A worker will remotely control — from up to about a mile away — the mechanical flagging devices where two-lane roads have been reduced to one for a project.

Along Highway 2, crews will install a new guardrail over the next 20 days, with most of the work done at night. With the push of a button, the machine with a blinking yellow traffic light turns solid, then switches to red, signaling oncoming drivers that they must stop. To cement that idea, an arm, much like those found at parking lots or railroad crossings, comes down to prevent drivers from ignoring the signal.

At the same time, another machine at the other end of the work area, having already stopped traffic from the other direction, switches back to a blinking yellow light as the arm rotates up, allowing traffic to continue.

The Washington State Department of Transportation has used the devices, dubbed "roboflaggers," in Tacoma for maintenance and emergency repair work, but the Highway 2 test is the first time the system will be used on a construction project.

While the test will require one person to operate each machine, eventually, as is done already in other states, only one person will be needed to operate both roboflaggers.

Manufactured by Bret Goss of Roboflagger Inc., the device is a spin-off of a similar machine used by construction crews in Canada, Goss said Tuesday after a training session with work crews. They're currently being used in more than 30 states, including California, Oregon and Idaho, he said.

"People unfortunately pay so much more respect to this machine than they do us," he said. "So it's nice to have one flagger take back control of the road without risking injury."

Typically, flaggers now step into the lane of traffic with a hand-held stop sign, said Carl Barker, assistant project manager on the Highway 2 project. It's easy for an inattentive driver to not see the employee, he said.

"This reduces their exposure on the road, gives them added protection," Barker said. "If this test works, I can see the state incorporating them more often into projects."

It's unlikely the device would be useful on larger projects, such as interstate highways or five-lane roads, Barker said. There, diverting traffic around closed lanes by using cones and flaggers makes more sense.

But where they will be useful, flaggers say they'll be glad to hand over the work to the machine.

"I'd rather have the machine take a hit than me," said Mark Smith, a 15-year road-construction veteran. "At least then, I'm pretty much assured that I'll get to go home at night."

Christopher Schwarzen: 425-783-0577 or cschwarzen@seattletimes.com