Last week, our Managing Director Greg Clark travelled over to Phoenix, Arizona USA to attend the annual Convention and Traffic Expo organised by the American Traffic and Safety Services Association (ATSSA).

Greg likes to attend the ATSSA Conference and Expo, which is held in one of five cities each year and he always comes back to the UK with his head buzzing with ideas and innovations for potential inclusion within the business portfolio. This year at Phoenix, was no exception!

The opening session of the conference with keynote speaker Scott Wozniak, from Swoz Consulting was superb, with approximately 2,000 like minded individuals captivated by the opening discussions. The session included a poignant remembrance of the unfortunate workforce who have lost their lives in workzones in the past twelve months which was humbly acknowledged by all in attendance.

The Expo Hall opened and Greg meandered through the well-presented booths (in his trademark ‘Superman’ T-Shirt) looking at all things road marking. He met up with colleagues from RoadVista, the manufacturer of our LLG7 LaserLux retro-reflectometer (the equipment behind our award winning QMS LifeLine^TM Intelligent Asset Management solution) and had a thorough demonstration of their latest handheld Stripemaster III reflectometer for testing static markings with ease and accuracy. Watch this space on this one!

It was however line removal equipment that Greg was most interested in on this occasion and there was plenty of various machines to view!

Line removal has always been a difficult process to get right. Hot Compressed Air is very loud and produces massive amounts of harmful smoke and dust. Water blasting can be very messy and can significantly affect the strength of the surface if not done correctly or in some cases, delicately. Scabbling can be very slow, with damage to the surface and increase of HAVs for the operatives – So what process is best? The answer, it depends on the surface, the conditions and the overall finish required.

Our line marking trucks are equipped with scabbling equipment for small removal projects. This equipment is approaching the end of its functional life, so Greg went to Phoenix on a removal machine mission!

He was therefore delighted to connect with Zach at Stripe Removal Technologies who demonstrated their line removal machine which takes scabbling to the next level. Greg said, “the depth control of the SC10E is excellent, such a fine adjustment after lowering the cutting head to the surface provides positive feedback to the operator. Add to this, the cutting head specifically designed for thermoplastic and MMA removal and the full 250mm wide path coverage will certainly make the removal process far easier and more precise”.

Following some Expo negotiations and “show deal”, Greg and Zach shook hands and we look forward to two new machines arriving shortly to QMS HQ from Tennessee!