I have now had the honor of serving the resident of Oakland County as a member of the Road Commission for Oakland County (RCOC) Board of Road Commissioners for six months, and I would like to share with your readers some of what I have learned in this time.
The opportunity to visit the Road Commission’s six garages and witness the commitment and dedication of their staffs was my first prerogative. Sitting in with the clerks in the agency’s Department of Citizen Services offered me the chance to witness first-hand the volume of calls and coordination of the responses inside the call center to respond to the needs of the residents of Oakland County. In an average year, the Department will receive more than 30,000 calls from the county’s citizens.
When it comes to customer service, the RCOC staff sets the standard by their effort and the speed with which they respond to the calls of the Oakland County residents. Our Department of Citizen Services not only receives all these calls, but processes the service requests, tracks the responses and, in many cases, provides follow-up calls to the residents in a concerted effort to continue the advancement in the quality of service we provide.
Our Highway Maintenance Department oversees the largest county road system in the state. The maintenance of these roads has been diligently kept up in spite of revenues being flat for more than eight years. Even with the state’s significant road funding challenges, we continue to get the job done and will continue to look for ways to improve the condition and quality of our county’s roads.
I have met with representatives of every Road Commission department to form a detailed analysis of the present and future road needs in the county. We work as a team to provide low-cost programs, which have a high-yield result for improving the quality of our roads. To speak frankly, this is an agency staffed by committed professionals who take both their jobs and our collective responsibility to the community very seriously.
RCOC is also a national leader when it comes to innovation. Consider that RCOC:
-Maintains the largest system of ‘smart? adaptive traffic signals in the country (the FAST-TRAC system continually adjusts signal timing to best meet actual traffic demands in real time).
-Through our FAST-TRAC system, we employ more than 2,000 video cameras for automated vehicle detection ? the largest such deployment in the world.
-Is a leader in constructing modern roundabouts, the circular intersections that have been proven to reduce traffic accidents, increase traffic capacity and provide better traffic flow.
-Saved money and avoided hiring additional staff by privatizing services where it makes business sense to do so.
-Is the only road commission in the state with an entire department dedicated to receiving and processing resident phone calls and e-mails.
-Is a national leader in many aspects of transportation-related technologies that are allowing for improved efficiency and safer roads.
-Is the lead agency in the Southeastern Michigan Snow and Ice Management (SEMSIM) project, which is the largest deployment of satellite-based fleet management in the country (partners are Wayne County, the Road Commission of Macomb County, the City of Detroit and SMART bus system).
The Road Commission remains committed to significantly reducing Oakland County’s road-funding donor status (we send more money in road funding to Lansing than we get back from the state) as well as Michigan’s donor status (Michigan sends more money in road funding to Washington, DC than we get back). We are committed to procuring our fair share, whether it’s from the state or the federal government.
It is an honor to serve the county as a board member and I warmly thank the Board of Commissioners for allowing me to serve the residents of Oakland County.