Improving Signing from the Installation Perspective Creating the Sign Crew Field Book
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The Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD) provides valuable guidance about all aspects of traffic signing. However, MUTCD guidelines are developed primarily by and for engineers. Field personnel who install signing can find it difficult to get needed 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 research project that identified the need to improve sign placement for guide signs on conventional highways. As part of that project, researchers worked with the state transportation agency traffic operations staff to create the Sign Crew Field Book. This document uses illustrations to establish target sign placement criteria for sign height, sign lateral offset, and sign longitudinal placement 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 field book has been well received and was recently updated to reflect changes in the MUTCD since it was first published.
