The MUTCD provides valuable guidance about all aspects of traffic signing. However, MUTCD guidelines are developed primarily by and for engineers. When it comes to field personnel who install signing, it can be a challenge for them to acquire the appropriate information from the MUTCD for a variety of reasons. The need for signing guidelines targeted specifically to field crews was recognized as part of a TxDOT/TTI research project that identified the need to improve sign placement for guide signs on conventional highways. As part of that research project, researchers worked with TxDOT Traffic Operations staff to create the Sign Crew Field Book. This document uses illustrations to establish target sign placement criteria for sign height, lateral offset, and longitudinal placement, with special attention to signing on the approach to, and departure from, an intersection. The intersection sign placement guidelines emphasize the treatment of the signs on the approach and departure as a system of signs rather than a collection of individual signs that are placed at inconsistent distances from one intersection to another. The field book also contains information on the arrangement of components within a guide sign assembly, sign placement for divided highway intersections and crossovers, delineator and object marker placement, markings for bridges and guardrails, and mailboxes. The document has been very well received and was recently updated to reflect changes in the MUTCD that have been implemented since the field book was first published.
