| How highway agencies work
Highway agencies use funds from gasoline taxes and other sources to build and maintain
bridges, roads, and related services. This includes traffic control (signs, signals), road
safety (barriers, attenuators), roadside vegetation maintenance, winter road maintenance,
and many other areas.
In some work areas, agency crews do all of the work themselves. The agency - state,
county, city, or township - buys or leases equipment and materials for them to use. Winter
maintenance (snow and ice control), gravel road maintenance (including dust control),
vegetation management, some areas of road maintenance (patching, pot hole repair, crack
filling), and traffic control are areas most often completed by agency crews.
In areas where agencies use outside contractors, such as new road construction, bridge
construction, and overlays, agency personnel write specifications for materials, methods,
and equipment to be used. Specification writing ensures that outside contractors will use
products and services that perform the way the agency wants. This makes reaching key
highway agency personnel critical, even when outside contractors eventually purchase the
product.
If highway agency personnel don't know about your client's product or service and it
isn't covered in the agency's specification, outside contractors will not be able to buy
or use it.
Trends
Like many industries, highway agencies are becoming more automated. Intelligent
transportation systems, called ITS, computerized traffic control devices, computer chips
embedded in heavy equipment such as graders and trucks, computerized bridge and road
design software, and computerized bid evaluation software are just some of the new areas
to watch.
Federal legislation mandated that agencies choose the lowest life-cycle cost
option when evaluating bids on projects that include even an element of federal funding.
This opens the door to many suppliers who make higher-cost, longer-life materials and
products. So if you hear someone say, "Road departments always take the lowest
bid," it's not necessarily so any more. Now they must use the lowest-cost lifetime
cost option, which often includes materials and products that cost considerably more.
Predictions
Accelerated moves toward life-cycle costing - quality rather than low initial cost -
will gradually work its way down from state projects to include all projects.
Computer software and the Internet will increasingly let highway agencies search for
the best of new materials, equipment, and better work methods. Better Roads can help you
get information about your client's advantages in these areas in front of road department
buyers, both in the magazine and at our Web site,
www.betterroads.com.Distribution
Better Roads is always mailed on time, getting your advertisement in front of your
buyer when you want and expect it. Last year, every issue of Better Roads was mailed
before the end of the month preceding the date of issue. Other magazines often mail midway
through the month of issue or later. Ask to see our postal receipts (and theirs) if you
want proof.
On-time mail dates help keep your ad's effectiveness. Buyers are less likely to keep
magazines whose issue dates have passed. So, with Better Roads, your ad is in their hands
from the beginning of the month, not the end. |
To an ad agency rep new to the industry...
If you've just started with an ad agency, or if you've been reassigned to a highway
industry account from another area, here are some industry facts that can help you get
started.
1. Total market value of bridge and road
construction and maintenance now stands at $124 billion a year, a marked increase thanks
to TEA-21. About 25% of this is channeled from driver user taxes via the federal
government to state and local highway departments. About 60% of the money is spent by
state highway departments. The rest is spent by local road and street agencies.
2. Governmental highway engineers and
managers make most of the buying and/or specifying decisions. Even when a contractor buys
a product, it must meet government highway agency specifications and government specifiers
often write their specs to limit the products or services that can be used.
3. There are about 7,000 prequalified highway
contractors. States decide on qualifications before a contractor can bid on highway work.
Local agencies usually follow their state's qualifications. So, after your advertising
client reaches governmental buyers - their primary target - the next most important target
is the buyer in a prequalified construction company.
Better Roads circulates to prequalified contractors, as well as the
largest number of highway department buyers, and skips the wasted circulation of
contractors who are not prequalified to do related road work.
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