Local brief
Johnson County, Iowa: Secondary Roads wins a national FHWA award for a home-built rig that lets crews survey roads from the truck
The Johnson County Secondary Roads Department won a national SMART Transformation Award in the Federal Highway Administration’s Build a Better Mousetrap competition for its Roadway Mobile Survey Rig, a hitch-mounted GPS rig that lets employees measure roads while driving instead of walking next to traffic.
Johnson County, Iowa, announced on Tuesday, Oct. 13, 2026, that its Secondary Roads Department has received a national award from the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) for a tool its own employees built.
The award. The department won the national SMART Transformation Award through FHWA’s Build a Better Mousetrap competition for its Roadway Mobile Survey Rig.
What the rig does. The county says surveying miles of road on foot was slow and put employees close to traffic. The rig attaches to a vehicle hitch and holds GPS surveying equipment, so crews can collect roadway measurements from inside the vehicle. Using it, employees can survey about eight miles of road in 35 minutes while driving at 25 mph, with measurements taken every 100 feet. Engineers use that data to judge road conditions and plan future work.
Built from spare parts. Secondary Roads employees designed and built the rig from repurposed materials, including undamaged pieces of road signposts, and made it adjustable for different survey jobs.
How it got there. The rig first took first place in the Iowa Local Technical Assistance Program’s Build a Better Mousetrap competition, then advanced to the national round, where judges reviewed more than 100 entries. The competition recognizes ideas from local transportation agencies that improve efficiency and safety and cut costs, and it encourages agencies to share them.
2026 national winners list: https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/clas/babm/babm_winners_2026.aspx. Johnson County website: https://johnsoncountyiowa.gov/.
Original source: Johnson County, Iowa, General News email "Johnson County Secondary Roads Department receives national award for innovative survey equipment," sent Oct. 13, 2026, to the Notice Nearby publisher inbox. Notice Nearby wrote this brief in its own words.
What to read next: the Johnson County hub (https://noticenearby.com/ia/johnson), the Iowa hub (https://noticenearby.com/ia) and all public papers (https://noticenearby.com/papers). Local businesses, parks and places nearby are on ZOST.app (https://zost.app).
Notice Nearby is a Public Register listing, not a newspaper, and this page is not Legal Publication. If Johnson County and this note disagree, the county wins.
Source: the public notice on this register NN-GOVEMAIL-20261013-IAJOHNRIG · Johnson County, Iowa.
This is a Notice Nearby local brief — an in-house explainer written from a government-posted notice on this register. It is not official minutes, not a newspaper story, and not Legal Publication.