LITTLE ROCK, AR The transportation agency for Arkansas unveiled a new name and logo to conform with a new state law, ending a long period when it was known as the State Highway and Transportation Department to now make it the Arkansas Department of Transportation.

It also launched the changes with a logo to help introduce its new identity to the public (shown below).

That makes it the latest state highway department to alter its name this year, after Nebraska earlier created a state DOT by merging the formerly separate Department of Roads and the Department of Aeronautics into a single organization.

In the case of Arkansas, however, the change is mainly a rebranding of an agency that has existed in various names for more than a century. It did so after lawmakers passed legislation on the recommendation of a Legislative Task Force on Intermodal Transportation and Commerce.

While the task force considered combining the Department of Aeronautics and the Arkansas Waterways Commission with the AHTD, it recommended against merging those separate agencies.

But it said renaming the highway agency as the state DOT would bring it "into the mainstream of the vast majority of transportation entities" in other states, align the Arkansas DOT "with specific language in federal law" that refers to various DOTs, and "identify the department as the point of contact for intermodal development in coordination with Aeronautics and Waterways, for purposes of economic development."

ArDOT Director Scott Bennett also said the state DOT is "the backbone of economic development in the state. And nothing makes job creation more possible than the work we do."

The announcement also gave some ArDOT history. In 1929, it said, the Arkansas Highway Department was separated from the State Department of Lands. Decades later, in 1977, the state changed its name to the Highway and Transportation Department.

However, said Bennett, "although we have a new name, we still have the same commitment to safety, efficiency, quality and trust."