[Case Study] For the City of Meriden, Transportation Innovation is a Top Priority

Challenge: In order to remain compliant on DOT-funded municipality projects, the public works department in the City of Meriden used a robust Four Volume method that often led to time-consuming project slowdowns.

Solution: In order to streamline this process, Director of Public Works Howard Weissberg, P.E., and his team vetted a number of software solutions and landed on Appia® for construction administration and inspection.

Results: Piloting Appia on the large Pratt Street Traffic Improvement project led to improved project management
and data reporting, cost savings, and more time for inspectors in the field.

Howard Weissberg, P.E., is the Director of Public Works for the City of Meriden, a town of about 60,000 in Connecticut, not far from New Haven. Responsible for infrastructure management and capital projects like paving, culvert installation, signal replacement, etc., many of the Public Works projects are funded by the state DOT. To manage these projects, Weissberg and his team use the required, paper-based Four Volume method that includes daily work reports, contract items, quantity computations, and miscellaneous contract data. While Weissberg recognized the value of the consistent, well-documented method, the cons kept piling up: duplication of effort, greater opportunity for errors, long term storage, auditing challenges, etc. It quickly became clear that a software solution would allow the City of Meriden to remain compliant while streamlining their existing process.

The next step? Embracing e-construction innovation.

In recent years, the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) has put an increasing focus on e-Construction solutions as a way to improve our nation’s infrastructure. To that end, State Transportation Innovation Councils (STICs) are set up in every state, with the purpose of providing STIC Grants to offset the costs of innovative practices in state transportation agencies. To fund their Appia implementation, the City of Meriden planned to take advantage of this savvy FHWA initiative.

Read the full case study.