The state of alabama highway department conducted a two-year project to revise ts utilities policies and develop a state-of-the-artmanual setting out these policies. The project was conducted by theuniversity of alabama. The university formed an advisory group of 41 representatives from utility companies, engineering consultants, construction companies, and utility regulatory organizations. Interviews conducted with the advisory group and with utilities-related managers from the department resulted in more than 300 suggestions for changes to utilities activities. These suggestions were condensed to85 action items studied by the university and led to the adoption of a majority of these items in the department's revised utilities policies. The new utilities manual was prepared with a desktop publishing system, which allowed the manual's style and format to be customized to fit the department's requirements. Several drafts of the document were prepared, followed by intervening reviews by the advisorygroup and the department. After adoption of the updated policies and publication of the new manual, the department and university conducted nine training sessions throughout the state, which were attended by more than 1, 200 department employees, local government employees, utility industry representatives, and consulting engineers. This paper appears in transportation research record no. 1262, Planning, management and economic analysis 1990.
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