EZ-Liner Paves the Way With Striper Technology

EZ-Liner Paves the Way With Striper Technology

As time goes by, things change, or at least they should. Technology has made great strides in the last few years, and EZ-Liner is always looking at ways to use it to the advantage of our striper customers. Here are a few areas in which our attention to technology is helping you.

Guidance Systems

Although the time-tested mechanical guide is still favored by marking crews everywhere, there are a lot of options available. Recently EZ-Liner has provided video guidance systems, optical guides and laser guides in addition to mechanical pointers. Future developments on the guidance system front could involve intelligent road systems, GPS technology and computerized mapping of highway markings.

Operator Safety

Every year the industry learns more about how to keep striping crews safer. These days technology allows us to position operators in the chassis cab and to minimize crash effects through a carefully-engineered combination of ROPS cabs and crash attenuators. Safety lighting is now brighter and more easily seen. Future innovations are most likely to come in the area of better materials for cabs and attenuators and from remote operation of advance and trail vehicles.

Quality Control

Engineering advances and fabrication techniques allow us to offer equal or greater structural strength and performance in smaller, lighter packages than when we entered this market in 1962. Gun carriages, for example, can now be small and compact, reducing wear on the running gear and the steering systems. As technology advances our ways of fabricating and the material we use, platforms and other steel parts will continue to become lighter and stronger. Each advancement must be approved by our quality control team.

Material Monitoring

Precise measurement of materials on board and materials used has now been surpassed by the ability to monitor application rates of paint and beads while the striper is painting. Digital readouts in the cab show paint usage in gallons per mile, and bead usage in pounds per gallon, and are now available with accuracy to within a few seconds. Future advances could allow on-the-fly monitoring accurate to one tenth of a pound or gallon, and we will be able to allow agency offices to download application data from crews that are out striping.
Advances in computer, satellite and manufacturing technology offer a world of promise. It's exciting to think of how highway marking will change in the next few years.