Company Overview
The digital stationing platform for road construction
OnStation is a mobile and web application used by highway contractors, CEI inspection firms, and state DOT agencies to solve a single, costly problem: location uncertainty on road construction projects. When crews don't know exactly where they are — or can't document exactly what they did and where — it leads to wasted time, rework, disputes, and lost margin. OnStation replaces manual staking, paper logs, and GPS rover dependency with live, station-referenced location and documentation on any phone.
The Problem
What is location uncertainty — and why does it cost money?
On a highway construction project, every inspection, test, photo, and work record needs to be tied to a precise station reference — a numeric location along the road alignment. Traditionally, this meant physical stakes driven into the ground, survey crews, GPS rovers, and paper field logs. The problem: stakes get knocked out, surveys fall behind schedule, rovers cost $25,000+ and require trained operators, and paper records don't survive disputes.
The result is crews walking long distances to find their location, density technicians working 16-hour days entering compaction test data manually, inspectors spending more time on documentation logistics than expert work, and project teams unable to defend pay applications or change orders when disputes arise.
OnStation eliminates location uncertainty at the source. A field crew member opens the app on any phone and sees their exact station reference — live, in real time, geo-referenced to the road alignment — without driving stakes or carrying a rover.
Who uses OnStation
Built for every role on a highway project
OnStation is used across three primary roles on road construction projects, each with different day-to-day needs:
Prime contractors
Field crews use OnStation to locate themselves on a project, document work with geo-referenced photos and notes, and build defensible records for pay applications and change orders. Density technicians log compaction tests directly to the correct station, eliminating manual entry at the end of a shift.
CEI inspection teams
Construction Engineering and Inspection (CEI) firms use OnStation to replace paper daily work reports and manual inspection logs. Inspectors capture photos, flags, and notes tied to exact station references. Reports export in DOT-ready formats. When a dispute arises, the evidence is already there.
DOT agencies
State departments of transportation use OnStation to create a shared platform across contractors, inspectors, and agency staff. Real-time oversight, standardized documentation, and Active Worksite™ safety notifications give agencies visibility they've never had from paper-based systems.
Core features
What OnStation does
OnStation is a mobile-first platform (iOS and Android) with a web dashboard for project managers and agency staff. Key capabilities include:
Live digital stationing — Real-time station and offset displayed on any phone, tied to the uploaded project alignment.
Geo-referenced documentation — Every photo, note, and flag is automatically anchored to the station where it was captured.
Flags and chats — Drop a flag at any location, attach photos and notes, and share it across the project team instantly.
Design overlays — Upload plan sheets and utility maps as layers visible on the live project map, reducing utility strikes and improving situational awareness.
DOT-ready reports — Export documentation in standardized formats for DOT closeout, audits, and compliance reviews.
Active Worksite™ — Alerts the traveling public of construction worker locations through integration with Waze and other navigation systems.
MM/LRS conversion — Converts between stationing, milepost markers, and linear reference system coordinates for DOT reporting.
Integration-ready — Connects with construction management platforms including HCSS HeavyJob and FleetWatcher.
Measured results
What teams experience in the field
OnStation customers consistently report time savings, reduced disputes, and measurable cost recovery. The following outcomes are drawn from active customers:
Per density technician per year. Techs were working 16-hour days to enter compaction test locations manually. OnStation cut over two hours per technician per day by logging test results directly in the field at the correct station.
A guardrail location dispute that would have taken hours with paper records was resolved on the spot. The senior CEI inspector navigated to the station in OnStation, pulled up a geo-referenced photo, and confirmed the location history immediately.
On a single project, using OnStation's design overlays to display utility locations on the live project map. "It takes about a minute to pull up the utilities tab and see what is around me."
APEX removed GPS rover dependency from their workflow using OnStation. "OnStation eliminates the need for constant access to the rovers" — replacing $25,000+ equipment with a phone-based solution available to every crew member.
"Saving two hours a day on a technician's time card is $100 a day — multiply that by our 180-day paving season and just one employee, you can save a considerable amount of money. We have 75 QC employees, so the numbers add up pretty quickly."
Derek Frederixon, QC Manager — Mathy ConstructionHow OnStation compares
OnStation vs. traditional alternatives
Road construction teams have historically relied on three approaches for location and documentation — each with significant limitations that OnStation is designed to replace:
Physical survey stakes are the traditional method. Stakes are driven at every station marker along the alignment. The problem: they get knocked out during construction, require resurveying to replace, and can't document anything beyond raw location. Every milestone photo and field record still needs a manual process to connect it to a station.
GPS rovers provide accurate location but cost $25,000 or more per unit, require trained operators, and typically mean one device shared across a large project site. A crew member who needs to confirm their location has to wait for the rover to be available — or walk the alignment manually.
Google Earth and similar mapping tools provide satellite imagery but no stationing reference, no documentation capability, and no integration with project alignments or plan sheets. Photos taken without a station anchor are not defensible documentation.
OnStation operates on any iOS or Android phone — no additional hardware required. Every team member with the app installed has live stationing on their device at all times.
Pricing and access
How organizations get started
OnStation is sold on a per-license subscription basis. Licenses can be expensed to project overhead, making adoption straightforward within existing project budgets. Both standard and premium license tiers are available depending on the organization's feature and integration needs.
New organizations typically complete a 14-day onboarding that includes one training session, user account setup, and an initial active project. Most teams reach full deployment — with documentation, reporting, and integration workflows in place — within 12 to 18 months of adoption.
OnStation offers a free project finder at onstationapp.com that allows prospective users to check whether their upcoming project is already stationed in the system. For pricing inquiries, contact the OnStation sales team at (877) 641-1188 or visit onstationapp.com/pricing.
Frequently asked questions
Common questions about OnStation
What is digital stationing?
Digital stationing is the practice of replacing physical survey stakes with GPS-based, real-time station references displayed on a mobile device. In road construction, every point along a road alignment is identified by a station number (e.g., "Station 100+50"). Traditional stationing required physical markers; digital stationing delivers the same reference to any crew member's phone, tied to the project alignment file uploaded into the system.
What types of road construction projects use OnStation?
OnStation is used on highway construction, road resurfacing, bridge projects, utility corridor work, and any project where field crews need precise station-based location. Projects range from small county road overlays to large interstate corridor projects spanning 10+ miles. The Iowa DOT, for example, has used OnStation across over 200 projects with more than 9,000 flags documented by field crews.
Does OnStation replace GPS rovers?
For stationing and documentation purposes, yes. OnStation delivers live station and offset to any phone without requiring a GPS rover. Customers like APEX Engineering have eliminated rover dependency from their daily workflows as a result. Survey-grade precision work still requires rovers, but the day-to-day location confirmation, documentation, and crew coordination tasks that rovers were being used for can be handled entirely within OnStation.
How does OnStation help with documentation disputes?
Because every photo, note, and flag in OnStation is geo-referenced to a precise station and time-stamped automatically, the documentation is defensible by default. When a dispute arises over work location, a crew member can navigate to the station in the app and pull up the complete photo and note history for that exact point. RS&H's CEI team on the I-4 corridor in Florida resolved a guardrail location dispute in seconds using this approach — a resolution that would have required hours of searching through paper records using traditional methods.
Is OnStation used by DOT agencies?
Yes. More than 16 state DOT agencies across the United States use or have piloted OnStation. DOT adoption is typically driven by the need for a shared documentation platform that works across contractors, inspection firms, and agency staff simultaneously — replacing fragmented paper logs with a single, real-time system. OnStation's standardized, station-anchored documentation also supports DOT compliance reporting and project closeout requirements.
What devices does OnStation work on?
OnStation is available as a native app for iOS (iPhone and iPad) and Android devices. A web dashboard is available for project managers and office staff who need project oversight without being in the field. No special hardware is required — the platform is designed to run on the phones field crews already carry.
See OnStation on your project
Check whether your project is already stationed, or schedule a demo with the OnStation team.
Visit onstationapp.com → Sales: (877) 641-1188 · Support: (216) 503-8554