Michigan traffic control documentation requirements
What Michigan DOT asks a contractor to record about temporary traffic control, where that requirement comes from, and how strong the evidence behind it is.
What Michigan requires
Michigan states the obligation in two short sentences that do a great deal of work: “Inspect traffic control devices daily to ensure that the devices are relevant, in place, positioned, aligned, and oriented as required. Record inspections and make the records available to the Engineer upon request.”
Then it adds a clause most states do not have: “The Department may take possession of the inspection records at project completion.” Your daily inspection records are not merely reviewable — MDOT can take them. A record you would not want handed over as-is is a record worth improving before it is.
Section 812 also puts a documented correction loop around it. If the Engineer documents that traffic control is deficient, inadequate or improperly placed, written notification with corrective instructions goes to the Contractor, the Contractor's appointed Safety Supervisor, and the traffic control supplier — and acknowledgement of that notification is expected. The inspection record and the correction record are the two halves that have to line up.
Source: MDOT 2020 Standard Specifications for Construction, Section 812How we know: Read directly from the MDOT 2020 Standard Specifications for Construction, Section 812 (fetched from michigan.gov). Verified 2026-09-05.
The agency's form. Separately, MDOT Form 1013S is completed by the MDOT inspector and attached to the Inspector's Daily Report — that is the agency's record, not yours. Section 812 obliges you to keep your own.
On federal-aid work, 23 CFR 630 Subparts J and K apply whatever Michigan specifies, with a compliance date of December 31, 2026 — the federal floor, explained. And after an incident the questions come from the incident, not the specification: 105 published judicial matters on that.
DTCD produces this record from the drive-through itself, and names the controlling Michigan requirement on the generated PDF. Open a sample before deciding anything.
Try it on one Michigan project See pricing
Draw the closure on a map and the builder reads the route, mileposts and county from Michigan’s own public GIS, checks bridge clearance on the route and the detour, and exports a WZDx feature, a PDF or an email. It runs in the browser — nothing is submitted or stored.
Open the Michigan builder → · open the offline build · all 50 statesWhat changes at the Michigan state line
Crews rarely work one state, and the record a neighbouring DOT expects is often named differently and cited somewhere else entirely. Here is how the states bordering Michigan compare:
| State | Citation | Evidence we have |
|---|---|---|
| Indiana | Section 801 (Traffic Controls for Construction and Maintenance) — referenced via INDOT GIFE Section 2.8 | Binding language identified |
| Ohio | Section 614 (Maintaining Traffic) + ODOT Manual of Procedures Section 614 + ODOT D4 General Notes M401 | Contract-binding spec language |
| Wisconsin | Standard Spec 643.3.1(5); Construction and Materials Manual 145.9.6 | Binding language identified |
All 50 states → · The full 50-state analysis, with every citation →