CLEVELAND — A new robotic road marking system developed in Cleveland could revolutionize the way pedestrian crossings and road markings are applied, making the process faster, more accurate and safer for workers, according to its inventors.
As drivers pass, a robotic arm mounted on a large pickup truck extends, drawing a clear white crosswalk or arrows.
There were no employees in the traffic control area. There were no templates to print. There were no night shifts. There was only one operator in the cabin, and the machine did the same thing as before—until recently.
This is the work of Cleveland-based startup RoadPrintz, which spent seven years developing robotic road sign printing technology.
After reaching an agreement with the Missouri Department of Transportation to sell the first truck to the agency, they recently unveiled it at their headquarters in East Cleveland.
While the process shown in the video above may seem slow, it is typically as fast, if not faster, than existing manual processes, according to Wyatt Newman, co-founder of RoadPrintz.
He said this is especially true when considering overall working hours, as it only takes one person to operate the truck – usually with an escort vehicle following behind.
For example, during a trial run on Euclid Avenue, the operator stopped the truck, leveled it, and allowed the robot to spray only the “bus” area for about five minutes before moving on.
”Typically, it takes three workers about ten minutes to complete the same task,” Newman said. He added that in other cases, the time required might be roughly the same, but fewer workers would be needed. “Roughly speaking, in terms of labor time, we’ve doubled our productivity.”
Co-founders Newman (a former Case Western Reserve University professor) and Sam Bell (a mechanic from Cleveland Highland) recently reached a major milestone after a trek to Missouri.
”This has been a long time coming,” said Newman. The idea began to germinate while he was teaching electrical engineering at Case Western Reserve University. He joked that calling a seven-year-old company a startup is a bit of a contradiction. “But we’re finally starting to move in the right direction.”
A Missouri Department of Transportation spokesman said that while the contract has not yet been fully executed, the agency plans to purchase one of the trucks.
”This approach has many benefits, but the most important one is that it minimizes the number of workers needed to apply these road markings, which reduces the number of trips,” said John Nelson, Missouri State Highway Safety and Traffic Engineering Engineer, in a statement provided by the Missouri Department of Transportation.
Newman estimated that the department could recoup its $500,000 investment in just two years through savings on labor costs and increased productivity.
He said: “This industry has been stagnant for 100 years. We want to change that and completely restructure how it works.”
This company, closely tied to the Cleveland area, is a spinout of Case Western Reserve University’s Technology Transfer Office. They lease the former White Motor Company building near the Cleveland waterfront. The robotic equipment and computers are mounted on a Ford truck manufactured in Lake Avon, and the paint is supplied by Aexcel, a company based in Mentor.
To cover the costs needed to achieve their current results, they relied in part on investments from family and friends, as well as a $1.5 million grant from the National Science Foundation, with the first $1 million awarded in 2022.
Newman brought his experience in electronics and computer systems design. Bell, who previously owned an auto repair shop called “Lusty Wrench” in Cleveland Heights, shared his mechanical expertise.
They co-led the effort, aiming to create a system they believed could replace the labor-intensive method of spraying paint on road signs with the precision of robots.
Newman said that most modern road marking applications use stencils and paint or a hot-melt method to apply pre-made markings to the road surface. This method differs from previous methods.
The RoadPrintz system, mounted on a Ford F-550 Super Duty extended-cab truck, uses a robotic arm to apply arrows, bicycle symbols, lane markings, and letters to the roadway.
The system comes pre-installed with approximately 80 symbols and numbers that comply with the Uniform Guide to Traffic Management Equipment. Operators can also enter their own information on-site.
”This isn’t automatic lane marking,” Newman said, noting that it’s different from the markings trucks receive as they drive. “This is for specialized markings—markings that have been applied with stencils for decades.”
This robot can even install orange traffic cones before and after painting, further reducing the need for workers to enter the roadway. The paint dries in about 10 minutes, allowing traffic to quickly return to normal.
”The traditional method was labor-intensive, time-consuming, and dangerous,” Newman said of the traditional method. “This method completely changed everything.”
At a recent event unveiling the technology, Cuyahoga County Executive Chris Ronan praised the innovation.
”You’ve taken RoadPrintz to the next level,” Ronnan said. “You’ll save us money. We need to improve efficiency.”
City Council Chairman Brian Griffin stated that while the painting work was outsourced to the county, the city administration performed some of the work itself. Griffin promised to discuss with the Department of Public Safety how to use RoadPrintz technology to free up workers’ time for other tasks.
rexner@cleveland.com – Primarily responsible for reporting on regional development and transportation for cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer. Previously, he worked in data analysis at cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer…read more
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Post time: Apr-17-2026