Technology has changed drastically since Alabama Department of Transportation engineer Allen Teague became involved in building roads.

Calculations that were once commonly made with a slide rule are now done completed with the aid of a computer and software programs.

Plans that were once drawn by hand are produced quicker on a personal computer.

Younger transportation department engineers such as Clint Baker joke that they don’t know how to use a slide rule.

From the beginning of the road-building process, when surveyors plot the alignment for a new road, to the design process and finally, the construction phase, technology has and continues to have a major impact.

The biggest change technology has brought to the road-building process, according to Teague and Randy Skelton, a general superintendent for Tuscaloosa-based contractor RayCON, is saving time and money across the entire process.

Engineers such as Teague used to take information from a surveyor and draw plans by hand on large pieces of graph paper with a pencil. His younger counterparts these days are used to the surveyor’s information being downloaded in digital form to a computer. They will use the distance and elevation information from the surveyor to design a roadway or new lanes for an existing roadway with the aid of computer-assisted design programs such as Microstation and InRoads.

“They can do in less than a minute what would take me all day to do,” Teague said.

Baker said changes to a road project can be made easier by working with digital files.

The programs will show lanes of a roadway, shoulders, drainage ditches, overpasses and other objects and areas. They can show a cross-section of a road project or even a “drive through” view of a finished project.

Mark Denton, senior engineering assistant, said a program that provides aerial views of the state’s highways similar to Google Earth can be used to calculate such projects as new lane markings.

Once their work is completed, engineers can generate paper plans for contractors such as RayCON that bid on construction projects like the Red Bay bypass, a new four-lane section of Alabama 24.

Contractors also utilize digital files that they will transmit to heavy equipment on the job site.

“Technology has changed so much,” Skelton said.

The technology that’s had the biggest impact on contractors is the use of GPS systems to help guide the work of heavy equipment operators and others involved in the construction phase, he said.

“A lot of big contractors are going to GPS now,” Skelton said while he drove along the site of the new section of U.S. 24 just a couple miles east of Red Bay. “That is the way of the future.”

Skelton said RayCON is utilizing GPS technology in a variety of ways, including GPS units mounted in the cabs of bulldozers and motor graders.

Skelton said RayCON engineers take plans provided by the transportation department and generate files that are placed on a digital media card. Those cards are inserted into a computer mounted inside the cab of a bulldozer or grader. The computer provides the operator with plans for the specific section of road he’s working on.

Skelton said the computer can inform the operator about how much of a particular material needs to be added to each layer of the roadbed. The GPS unit and computer can control the height and angle of the machines’ blades to make sure the operator remains within the parameters of the plans.

RayCON utilizes about six GPS units that are either mounted on bulldozers and graders, or use as hand-held units to assist with building ditches and laying drainage pipe.

A base station set up near the construction site can receive information from Tuscaloosa via satellite and transmit it to all of the GPS units on the job, Skelton said.

RayCON also utilizes a device called a “Total Robotic Station,” which transmits information to the heavy equipment operator.

Bulldozer operator Jessie Skelton said he ran a dozer before the advent of GPS technology. If a question arises during a job, the operator has the plans at his fingertips and doesn’t have to call an engineer to the site to assist him.

Jessie Skelton already knew how to operate a dozer the conventional way, but received training from Trimble, the company that provides the GPS units.

“It’s a real neat system,” he said. “It saves a lot of time and money.”

The Red Bay bypass project involves building 5½ miles of four-lane, divided highway along an alignment of Alabama 24, a project known as Corridor V.

There also are hand-held GPS units that assist in the construction of storm drains or setting drainage pipes, or for assisting operators of equipment that is not GPS equipped.

The equipment can costs hundreds of thousands of dollars, but it can pay for itself time and time again, Randy Skelton said.

Just because a bulldozer or grader is equipped with computers and GPS systems doesn’t mean it can run itself, however.

“You still need experienced operators,” Skelton said.

The same is true for the transportation department engineers who design the plans. The younger engineers still had to take the same math classes that Teague and other civil engineers took.

They also have to learn to use the various computer programs and learn state and federal standards.

Technology saves project designers time, but the programs they use also let them create plans in more detail.

It also saves space.

Teague said one of the computer towers in his office could hold a whole room of plans and information.

Russ Corey can be reached at 256-740-5738 or russ.corey@TimesDaily.com.