Iowa DOT News

AMES, Iowa – Oct. 30 – The Iowa Department of Transportation (DOT) received two national awards as part of the annual National Transportation Public Affairs Workshop sponsored by the American Association of State Highway Transportation Officials (AASHTO) Oct. 11-14 in St. Louis.

 “We are proud to be recognized by this group of professionals for the activities designed to deliver transportation safety information to our customers,” said DOT spokesperson Dena Gray-Fisher. “We look for methods to improve communication with our customers, and these are just two examples of how we get our messages to them.”

Iowa DOT received awards for its:

• Illustration – a multiple-blade plow illustration was created as part of a research project for the Iowa DOT and a pooled-fund research group representing the departments of transportation in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Ohio, and Indiana to test the effectiveness of this new concept. The Iowa DOT, having the capabilities to build the prototype, needed an illustration clearly depicting their new blade proposal. This illustration is one piece of the larger image used in aiding the Iowa DOT in making the idea an industry reality. To view the illustration, visit Iowa DOT’s Web site: http://www.iowadot.gov/pdf_files/Triple_Blade_Illustration.pdf.
• Iowa Floods 2008 Crisis Management Communication Plan – providing essential traveler information, including the issuance of 153 news releases between May 15 and June 26 covering multimodal impacts; responding to more than 12,000 phone calls through a temporary travel routing call center staffed by 34 DOT employees; processing more than 5,000 E-mails; and the development of a special flood information Web site section that offered photos of damaged roads and bridges, road closure information and flood safety information that served 409,665 unique visitors. The 2008 flood photos are available on Iowa DOT’s Web site: http://www.iowadot.gov/floods/2008floodgallery.html.

Believing that competition fosters a better product, AASHTO sponsors the annual public affairs competitions. The winning entries are announced at each annual National Transportation Public Affairs Workshop, recognizing the top communication programs for work completed by state transportation departments. Entries eligible for this year’s competition were projects implemented between May 1, 2008, and April 30, 2009. Thirty states submitted 125 entries in the 34 skills contest categories.

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Contact: Tracey Bramble at 515-239-1314 or [email protected]