Graffiti-fighting drones being tested in Washington state

By Drew Reeves

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    OLYMPIA, Washington (KPTV) — The Washington State Department of Transportation is testing out a first-of-its-kind program to use drones to remove graffiti.

Right now, the program is being tested by Tacoma and Olympia-area maintenance crews. It may seem futuristic, but those crews are using a new drone prototype that sprays paint to cover up the graffiti.

The drones are being used to tackle graffiti on bridges and overpasses.

WSDOT says that graffiti removal is a challenge but they also say it puts their crews at risk. Crews also say graffiti will sometimes reappear hours after it’s been covered up.

A WSDOT worker came up with the idea for the drones after being frustrated about pulling bridge maintenance crews from other tasks to work on graffiti removal. He thought if drones were being used to help with bridge inspections, why couldn’t they be used for graffiti removal?

However, no drone with these capabilities existed yet, so he reached out to drone manufacturers and found one willing to come up with a prototype.

The final working prototype arrived just this spring, and now WSDOT says they are the first transportation agency to use drones to combat graffiti.

Now, crews around Tacoma and Olympia will spend the rest of the year field testing the drones.

It does present some challenges, as drones cannot legally be flown over active traffic lanes, so where they work will have to come with closures.

In December of 2024, WSDOT will submit a report to the Washington Legislature about their pilot program for evaluation.

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