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Based on tragic accidents in Saskatche-wan
in recent years, Gurniak thought there
must be a way to remove the danger for flag
people on the highway. In August 2012, a
flag person was struck and fatally injured
in a Highway 39 work zone. Other collisions
over the years have resulted in injuries to
workers, as well as many near misses.
Thus, the idea for bringing the AFAD tech-nology
to Saskatchewan was born. Once he
had the support from his team at Potzus,
Gurniak approached the Saskatchewan
Ministry of Highways and Infrastructure
(MHI), which assessed the project and even-tually
gave it the go ahead.
Employees in the Technical Standards
Branch, Central Region (Design and
Construction) and Northern Region (Design
and Construction) worked alongside Potzus
as the company fabricated and assembled
the device.
“There was a lot of cooperation in-volved
in this project,” says Jeffrey Holland,
senior traffic engineer in the Design and
Innovation Division of MHI.
As Gurniak explained, the system is “ba-sically
a set of stop lights with flashing am-ber
and red lights” aimed at eliminating the
human presence in the middle of the high-way.
Instead of a flag person standing in
the middle of the road letting drivers know
when they can proceed forward, a traf-fic
light system mounted on a small trailer
performs this task. The flag person is situat-ed
in the ditch controlling the traffic lights,
maintaining radio communication in order
to know when to change the light.
The trial also utilized a pilot vehicle, a
truck which the traffic followed once the
AFAD indicated it was safe to proceed.
Once reaching the end of the work zone, the
truck turned around and began the same
process with the traffic going the other way.
SAFETY INNOVATION
Wayne Gurniak accepts the 2015 Safety Innovation
of Excellence Award from Saskatchewan Heavy
Construction Association Chairman Carmen Duncan
PHOTO COURTESY OF KEITH HERSHMILER
The pilot project for
the automated flagger
assistance device
28 Think BIG | Quarter 2 2016 | saskheavy.ca
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