Have you ever given any thought to the color of the stripes
on the roads you travel? Is it the right color yellow or
white? Pavement marking is something you probably rarely
think about until the proverbial “dark and stormy night”
and you can’t see where you are going. In a drive towards
improving pavement marking visibility and subsequently the
safety of highways, the State of Alabama has recently
begun to require color readings on newly striped roads. The
shift comes as the state makes the move from a materialsbased
(laboratory) to a performance-based (field) specifi -
cation for both white and yellow markings. The state’s
ultimate goal is to improve their highway safety standards,
putting them in the “best-in-class” company with states like
Florida and Texas.

The Alabama Department of Transportation (ALDOT)
Bureau of Materials and Tests contacted BYK Gardner in
January 2007 with a bid request to provide a total of forty
Spectroguides. The instruments would be provided to the
nine divisions throughout the state that have local respon -
sibility for the roads in their district.

As the materials test division searched for a solution that
could be implemented statewide, they had a list of require -
ments to satisfy. The instrument needed to be hand-held
and portable for field-use meeting the requirements of
ASTM E 1349-06. It needed to be lightweight with data
transfer capabilities. Finally, the instrument would need to
be easy-to-use, as the technical expertise of the operators
would vary greatly.

Prior to 2005, the ALDOT Bureau of Materials and Tests
had been using the BYK Gardner Handy-Color portable
spectrophotometer for color measurement of road
markings and signage in a lab setting. With the intro duc -
tion of the Spectroguide in 2005, they saw an opportunity
to upgrade their instrumental color measurement capa bili -
ties to the latest LED-based technology while adding the
ability to measure gloss. Based on their usage and
familiarity of the spectroguide in the materials lab, selection
of the Spectroguide for implementation statewide was a
natural fit. The ALDOT took delivery of 40 Spectroguides in
April, 2007.

BYK Gardner provided training over a several week period
during the months of April and May. A typical training
session consisted of a brief classroom introduction to the
instrument, followed by field measurements on freshly
striped roads. Apprehension towards “a new way of doing
things” quickly turned into enthusiasm as the users realized
how much easier their jobs would become with the use of
the Spectroguide. Data can now be collected and saved to
the instrument, downloaded in the lab, plotted on a graph
in MS ExcelŽ, ultimately providing an easy way to judge
whether the material is acceptable or unacceptable.

BYK Gardner has begun contacting other departments of
transportation, both on a state and local level, using the
ALDOT specification as an example of how easily the
spectroguide could be implemented throughout their
organization. Initial feedback from the field shows this to
be an application with excellent potential.