Asset Protection

Caltrans owns and maintains a wide range of transportation assets that are critical to the safety, reliability, and operation of California’s transportation system. These assets include lighting, signals, signs, traffic cabinets, electrical systems, roadside areas, maintenance facilities, and other infrastructure located throughout the transportation network and Caltrans right of way.

Many of these assets are vulnerable to theft, vandalism, illegal dumping, unauthorized access, encampment-related impacts, weather damage, and repeated repair needs. These issues can create safety concerns for the traveling public and Caltrans field crews, increase maintenance and replacement costs, reduce the reliability of transportation infrastructure, and pull crews away from other priority work.

Caltrans seeks innovative solutions that help protect transportation assets, deter theft and vandalism, monitor problem locations, reduce recurring damage, and improve response. Proposed solutions should support practical field use, improve asset visibility, and provide scalable approaches that can be used across different districts, asset types, and right-of-way conditions.

Solutions may address one or more of the following objectives:

• Improve asset protection by identifying tools, materials, equipment, or technologies that help prevent theft, vandalism, damage, and unauthorized access to Caltrans infrastructure.
• Deter recurring theft and vandalism by supporting proactive strategies to protect high-risk assets such as copper wiring, lighting systems, traffic cabinets, signals, signs, and electrical systems.
• Monitor problem locations by providing solutions that help Caltrans identify, track, and respond to areas experiencing repeated damage, dumping, encampment-related impacts, or other recurring asset protection concerns.
• Reduce maintenance and replacement costs by helping prevent repeat repairs, extend asset life, and improve the reliability of transportation infrastructure.
• Improve field response by providing tools or systems that help Caltrans crews document issues, prioritize response, coordinate repairs, and track recurring asset impacts over time.
• Support statewide scalability by demonstrating how the solution could be applied across multiple districts, asset types, roadside environments, maintenance activities, and right-of-way conditions.

The desired outcome is to improve Caltrans’ ability to protect critical transportation assets, reduce recurring theft and damage, improve safety, and lower maintenance and replacement costs. Caltrans seeks solutions that help deter vandalism and unauthorized access, monitor high-risk locations, improve response, and support the long-term reliability of assets across the statewide transportation network.