News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
Cookeville’s new school zone flasher system will showoff its versatility this week as Putnam County Schools go on fall break.
The system consists of 20 switches across 10 school zones. Cookeville Public Works Director Mary-Beth Elrod said the city got a new flasher system as the previous system was an old program and each switch required to be manually programmed twice a year.
“With these new flashers they are wireless through cellular data,” Elrod said. “We can log in to those and update them and change them in real-time and we are able to program the entire school year’s schedule into those flashers all at one time.”
Elrod said that means the flashers can be turned off during a break, without personnel going to each one individually to make a change. Elrod said moving forward the new system will improve the overall traffic during early releases and break periods during the school year.
“For when we have to release early that way we can quickly go in as soon as we hear from the school board when they are going to release school we can activate the school flashers from the computer system within a matter of minutes,” Elrod said. “And that helps with safety around the school zones just getting traffic in and out.”
Elrod said the new flasher system will address safety concerns the traffic division had when servicing the previous flasher system.
“They would have to physically go out to each flasher and open the cabinet on the side of the road while dodging traffic and reprogram those,” Elrod said. “This eliminates them having to go out into the traffic and the weather.”
Elrod said with the new system the traffic division would only have to go out to a switch if it is not working. Elrod said the new system will allow the department to have less on its plate and focus on other aspects of the department.
