Bay County Moves to LED Traffic Signals

Oak Ridge, Tenn.-based Aldis Corp. Monday announced the addition of Bay County to the company's SmartWay LED program.

Once the installation of 159 new traffic signals is complete, Bay County will become one of the first in the state to be 100 percent converted to brighter, more energy-efficient LED traffic signals.

The Aldis SmartWay program allows states and municipalities to upgrade to Institute of Transportation Engineers-certified LED signals without the up-front capital required to install and maintain the assets. The program eliminates the out-of-pocket cost while the energy savings provides additional return to the county.

"The Aldis SmartWay program reduces our traffic signal maintenance time while substantially lowering the associated costs for the county," said James Lillo, engineer-manager of the Bay County Road Commission. "Upgrading our incandescent signals with the Aldis LED's also reduces our overall energy consumption, thus significantly lowering our energy bills, while moving us closer to achieving our conservation goal to be more green."

The SmartWay program includes the complete retrofit of all incandescent traffic signals to LED and includes coverage and replacement of the signals for a period of 10 years. Aldis helps manage maintenance through a proprietary Web-based program, Aldis Tracker. This system provides Bay County with real-time access to maintenance and repair records, inventory counts and the ability to generate work orders.

"We are thrilled to empower Bay County to rapidly upgrade their entire community to LED and immediately recognize the energy and cost savings," said Eric Seabrook, director of marketing for Aldis. "Additionally, working with Bay County expands Aldis' geographic reach into the Midwest for our SmartWay program and the soon-to-be-released GridSmart advanced traffic management solution."

Installation of the new signals will be finished in next few weeks.

Seabrook said Aldis has now installed LED traffic signals in Ingham, Kent, Oakland and Washtenaw counties -- in some regions replacing 90 percent of signal lights without any complaints, including whether the cooler-burning bulbs will get clogged with snow in winter.

More at www.aldiscorp.com.