AUGUSTA, Maine — The Maine Department of Transportation held its first Innovation Showcase on Oct. 27 at the Augusta Civic Center in Augusta, bringing together department employees, researchers and industry partners to present new ideas for the state's transportation system.

"When funding is limited, innovation becomes even more critical," Deputy Commissioner Joyce Taylor said as she opened the event, according to the department.

Presentations covered research on pavement rutting, improvements to the state's Road Weather Information Systems, the use of drones in transportation, automated winter road salting and innovation in construction work, the department said.

The department also handed out six awards. The Driving Innovation Together Award went to an interstate rutting research project by MaineDOT's Scott Bickford, James Havu, Nick Dutil and Ryan Robinson, along with Josh Patten and David Bernhardt of McClure. Matt Burns and Jen Paul won the Route to Innovation Award for putting a SCADA system into use at the International Marine Terminal in Portland.

Jason Everett received the Pioneering Safety Award for vertical lights for survey crews, and Timothy Pelotte won the Homegrown Innovation Award for an edge line marking system. Cliff Curtis was named Distinguished Innovator.

Curtis also shared the People's Choice Award for an automated salting pilot program with Brian Austin of MaineDOT, Emil Danielsson of Klimator, Michael Bergeron of Epoke North America and Marc Valenti of Brine Technologies.

The department said Wednesday that the showcase is meant to encourage new ideas and build ties with consultants, contractors, researchers and technology providers.

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