Traffic Engineer PositionMasterpiece on the Mississippi
TO: The Honorable Mayor and City Council Members
FROM: Michael C. Van Milligen, City Manager
SUBJECT: Traffic Engineer Position
DATE: July 23, 2013
Dubuque
kital
All- America City
II 111!
2012
Personnel Manager Randy Peck recommends City Council approval to eliminate one
Engineering Technician position and create an additional Traffic Engineer position in the
Engineering Department.
I concur with the recommendation and respectfully request Mayor and City Council
approval.
duat4A., krt., italy,
Michael C. Van Milligen
MCVM:jh
Attachment
cc: Barry Lindahl, City Attorney
Cindy Steinhauser, Assistant City Manager
Teri Goodmann, Assistant City Manager
Randy Peck, Personnel Manager
THE CITY OF
DUB
Masterpiece on the Mississippi
TO: Michael C. Van Milligen, City Manager
FROM: Randy Peck, Personnel Manager (/
SUBJECT: Traffic Engineer Position
DATE: July 2, 2013
Dubuque
bfrid
AB- America City
11111!
2012
City Engineer Gus Psihoyos is requesting that one Engineering Technician position be
replaced with a Traffic Engineer position. I support Gus' recommendation. The
requested action is for the City Council to approve a motion to eliminate one
Engineering Technician position and create an additional Traffic Engineer position in the
Engineering Department.
RP:lmh
Masterpiece on the Mississippi
June 7, 2093
TO: Michael C. Van Mil!igen, City Manager
FROM: Gus Psihoyos, City Engineer
SUBJECT: Engineering Technician Position
2012
I received the attached memo concerning the engineering technician position from Dave
Ness. Dave states in his memo that he believes that the engineering technician position
filled by Duane Richter currently needs to be upgraded to reflect the changes in the
position the last three years. I have visited with Randy Peck and he suggests that I set
up a meeting with you, Randy and Dave to go over the memo and the options that we
could explore. 1 will be setting up a meeting to go over Dave's request and review
possible options.
Attach.
THE CITY OF
luB
1Vlasterpiece on the Mississippi
TO: Gus Psihoyos, City Engineer
FROM: David Ness, Civil Engineer II
SUBJECT: Duane Richter's Position
DATE: July 8, 2013
INTRODUCTION
Dubuque
* * * **
AllAmencaCity
1 111
r
2012
The Traffic Operations Center (TOC) has been in place since 2007 and has grown into
an integral component of the City of Dubuque's public safety sector. The TOC utilizes
state of the art technologies in the information technology and traffic engineering
industry and in many cases, works with traffic equipment developers to further improve
their products. With these rapidly changing technologies job duties and responsibilities
within the TOC continue to change. This memo serves to describe the current status of
responsibilities for Duane Richter (currently at GE -31 Engineer Tech position) and
request that his position be upgraded.
BACKGROUND
In 2009 I was the only employee working in the TOC. It was decided that a second
person be brought in to learn the system so that it did not all rely on one person.
Engineering was requested to utilize existing Engineering staff without significantly
impacting the FY 2011 operating budget. At that time Duane Richter was a newly hired
Engineer Tech that had expressed interest in the position and had a highly technical
background. Duane has a Bachelor in Science Degree in Civil Engineering and has his
Engineer -In- Training (EIT) certification. Duane was transferred into the TOC in January
of 2010.
DISCUSSION
The main objective of the Traffic Engineering department is to maintain a safe and
efficient transportation system in the City of Dubuque. The core responsibilities include
project design and inspection, design of traffic signals, street lighting, and fiber optic
networks along with operations and maintenance of the existing systems. The
Engineering department deploys many tools and technologies in the TOC to assist with
this objective. As technologies change, so do the responsibilities of those behind the
technology. Additional responsibilities that are jointly shared include:
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• Review and archiving of video footage for police department.
• Assignment of fault based on video review of recent accidents — often times while
officers are at the scene of the accident.
• Remote adjustment of traffic signal timings to mitigate backups
• Courtroom activities associated with video footage or traffic signal timings
• Remote management and maintenance of battery backup systems
• Operates and maintains the traffic network consisting of 15 servers, 75 network
switches, 200 cameras, 100's of vehicle sensors,
• Programs and maintains the City's Pre - Emption system which currently has 55
intersections and 91 vehicles.
• Learning and maintaining software
o Milestone video management software and equipment ($80,000)
o TACTICS central management software for traffic signals ($125,000)
o Opticom Central Management software for pre - emption ($40,000).
(These three software programs alone take many years to learn in order to be
proficient)
• Equipment setup and configuration (previously done by field technicians, now
equipment is much more technical and requires setup from within TOC)
o Wavetronics stop bar and advanced detection for intersections
o Wavetronics HD microwave traffic sensors
o MS Sedco detection units.
o Traffic monitoring cameras
o Siemen's traffic controller equipment
o Comtrol communication servers
o Opticom 764 series detectors
• Oversees traffic signal technicians for daily duties
• Researching new technologies
• Purchasing of equipment and services
In addition to these duties, Duane has taken on additional TOC Information Technology
challenges including deployment of Active Directory software, Sophos antivirus software
and the installation and configuration of Milestone video management servers. He also
has an integral role in the deployment of virtual servers on the traffic engineering
network.
Over that last three years Duane has been constantly challenged to make
improvements and is continually learning unique institutional knowledge associated with
the systems deployed in the TOC. Duane exhibits a passion for his job and has the
right combination of technical skills and patience to make very efficient use of his time
and resources. The tasks and responsibilities to manage and operate the TOC have
greatly increased since its inception yet his position has remained the same. Duane
has shared with me that moving him away from the work he loves would not be in his or
the City's best interest. Duane is currently performing the tasks and skills of a Traffic
Engineer. If Duane was transferred to perform other duties, we would need increase
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the grade of to match his current responsibilities. We would also need to add a
network technician to cover the maintenance of the traffic network and equipment.
During the 2 year interim that would be required to get personnel trained, we would
need to hire consultants to keep the systems and equipment maintained at their current
status. We have recently received an informal quote for the task of maintaining the
Milestone software and related equipment for $70,000 per year.
RECOMMENDATION
I recommend that a second Traffic Engineer position be created for Duane Richter.
This would replace Duane's current position of Engineering Technician in the TOC and
allow for continued improvements in public safety for the citizens of Dubuque.
Prepared by David Ness, Civil Engineer 11
cc: Jenny Larson, Budget Director
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