Across the Columbia river from Portland, Oregon you will find Clark County, Washington. Surrounded by mountains and dotted with deep volcanic lakes, Clark County has a population of around 225,000. As the traffic signals manager for Clark County Public Works, Rob Klug is responsible for the group that manages traffic signals, railroad crossings, school flashers, count stations and all kinds of other ITS equipment.
“I got into this industry about 20 years ago when I knew I wanted to be involved in transportation engineering and I had the good fortune of working in just about every aspect from transportation planning, transit planning, signal design, signal operations and worked my way up to the point until I felt like I was competent at a wide variety of transportation engineering work and was given an awesome opportunity about three years ago to step into a management position,” said Klug.
In the last 20 or so years a lot has changed in the industry and Klug is a great example of someone who keeps up with changing technology. He is always on the lookout for new technology and better ways of doing things. Ongoing education is important to him and he shows that on the job training is critical to success.
“I took the courses that were available in college at the University of Washington 25 years ago in transportation Engineering; which at the time were pretty slim. Almost all my work has been on-the-job training,” said Klug.
Since his days at college, he has attended specialized training for software applications and different operations. Just as important as keeping up to date with his education, Klug doesn’t want Clark county to use outdated technology.
“There really has been a huge change in technology in the last five to 10 years and that is very exciting because we have had to learn it all on the fly,” said Klug.
As a manager Klug faces many challenges related to finding money and moving obstacles out of the way of the people that are doing the work. But Klug counts himself lucky because they have a very good group of people working hard to secure grants. Klug believes that each successfully implemented upgrade builds trust with elected officials and management who in turn help make decision to continue funding new projects.
In 2009, Klug and his team took a corridor that was gridlocked for a great portion of the day to moving traffic in a way that no one had remembered it ever being done. The project on the 134th street corridor updated 18 traffic signals with improved signal timing, better signal operations and communications.
“Being able to go from gridlock to moving traffic on the first project was a really good way for us to show that investing in the infrastructure really does help us move more cars without putting a huge amount of money into the infrastructure,” said Klug. “It is amazing that when you actually have success that people want to reward that success with adequate funding."
In 2014, Clark County Public Works received an award for a Target Zero grant related to a major reduction in overall collisions at intersections that coincided with all of the other intersection improvements they were making.
“Several of the intersections saw a 30 percent reduction in collisions because of all the improvements we were making. The data shows that all the improvements made a significant increase in safety at the intersection,” said Klug.
It is hard to tell what specific element had the most impact on intersection safety since so many upgrades and improvements took place.
“We upgraded the traffic signals and replaced all the detection systems that weren't working right. We installed pan tilt zoom cameras so we could watch how the signals were operating and how the traffic was flowing and we replaced optically programmed signal heads with led indications in hopes of reducing rear end collisions associated with people driving up on the intersections,” said Klug.
Klug has always stretched the boundaries of what is possible for ITS in Clark County, Washington. And while he has seen success he knows that he can always help improve the systems that his team manages.
“We are pushing the envelope as hard as we can. I would love to see other agencies be able to do the same types of things that we are able to do with having the ability to hire the proper people and do more with what we have. But I understand that every agency has their own budgeting reality,” said Klug.