The Utah Transit Authority (UTA) offers bus, light rail, and commuter train transit options throughout the Wasatch Front of Utah, including the metropolitan areas of Ogden, Park City, Provo, Salt Lake City, and Tooele. They provide integrated mobility and environmentally friendly solutions to better serve the community.

When the UTA’s onsite paint system reached the end of its useful life, it was clear to management that an upgrade was necessary. The original booth was designed for a semi-truck configuration, which limited the bay’s lighting and its utility for painting buses. It simply did not have the size to accommodate the 60-foot articulated buses recently purchased by UTA.

“We were painting in that booth for about five days per week for almost 40 years,” said Kyle Stockley, Vehicle Support and Capital Program Manager for UTA. “We paint buses and other vehicles, as well as vehicle parts, which we manufacture. So, obtaining a right-fit solution was very important for daily operations.”

Additionally, the old system was not energy-inefficient. It featured an outdated, inadequate filtration system and presented a sealing problem, allowing dirt into the system and paint materials.

After coordinating with Scott Terry and Steve Bolton (owner and salesman of Rocky Mountain Lifts, a distributor for Accudraft), UTA chose a TX paint system.

It features a large cabin and shadowless interior design, engineered specifically to address UTA’s concerns with lighting. It also includes a heated cure cycle and electronic temperature and humidity controls for more customization than UTA’s previous system could offer. With the FOCUS™ control panel, UTA now had internet-based remote monitoring and cost per job information.

Energy recovery was also incorporated in the new system, whereby the heated booth expels exhaust air into an energy recovery unit. This allows exhausted hot air to be recycled before it is used to heat incoming air. Because UTA’s new system incorporates a bake cycle over 100 degrees, the booth can save energy by recirculating its own generated heat.

Rocky Mountain Lifts was able to provide local support to UTA during the construction process and continued service after the booth was commissioned.

“The new bake cycle actually helped us reduce our cure time,” Stockley explained. “Now we can increase our production throughout the paint process, lowering our daily operating cost.”

“The new system also has a better filtration system, with filters on the exterior and interior,” Stockley added. “That enables us to achieve a higher CFM, so we can actually move more air through the booth. It is all viewable on the computerized display, where we constantly monitor booth operations, including air flow and bake cycles.”

The new Accudraft system strategically uses the public’s resources to perform better and more efficiently use the funding on day-to-day operations.