MANAGEMENT TOOLS FOR QUANTIFICATION OF PERFORMANCE AND OUTCOME OF WINTER TRANSPORTATION INFRASTRUCTURE MAINTENANCE ACTIVITIES

• US 20130197977A1
• Filed: 01/29/2013
• Published: 08/01/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 01/30/2012
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: ClearAg, Inc. (TBG AG)
• Original Assignee: Iteris Incorporated
• Inventors: MEWES, JOHN J., ZARNS, KRISTOPHER A., OSTERMEIER, GREGORY M., KUNTZ, JEFFREY J.
• Application Number:
  US13/753,085
• Publication Number:
  US 20130197977A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/7.38
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 30/20 Design optimisation, verification or simulation optimisation, verification or simulation of circuit designs G06F30/30
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/0639 Performance analysis of employees; Performance analysis of enterprise or organisation operations
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/20 Administration of product repair or maintenance

Abstract

An apparatus and system for evaluating winter transportation infrastructure maintenance operations includes a quantification component and a simulation component. Input data representative of collected winter transportation infrastructure maintenance data and observed transportation infrastructure data are modeled in a comprehensive data processing mechanism to measure and carry out effective and efficient winter maintenance planning and operations.

Claims

1. A method of evaluating effectiveness and efficiency of winter transportation infrastructure maintenance activities, comprising:

integrating at least one vendor-independent database, one or more servers, and multiple data processing functions in at least one data processing module to enable an effective and efficient analysis of collected winter transportation infrastructure maintenance data, the collected winter transportation infrastructure maintenance data including a plurality of road treatment data, road network data, weather data, and component apportionment data;

quantifying the collected winter transportation infrastructure maintenance data by applying the multiple data processing functions to associate one or more of maintenance actions, road network information, weather events, and specific maintenance component applications by

applying the collected winter transportation infrastructure maintenance data to a transportation network based on a plurality of a GPS position, a determined direction of travel along the coordinate system defined by the transportation network, and lane information provided within data relative to one or more lanes of the transportation network,

segmenting the transportation network to enable an aggregation of data collected along defined segments comprising the transportation network, and

specifying component materials and apportionments of component materials in at least one selectable mixture comprising the component apportionment data to compare utilization of the component materials and mixtures being applied to the transportation network; and

enabling a plurality of customizable applications to quantified winter transportation infrastructure maintenance data, the customizable applications including manipulating a treatment to a roadway surface and corresponding component materials, manipulating environmental variables and their corresponding attributes, managing data from a diverse fleet of treatment vehicles, and managing one or more treatment vehicle reports represented at least by GPS tags and time tags and one or more of associated maintenance, weather, and road-related data elements, so that the collected winter transportation infrastructure maintenance data from different routes and different vehicles across different responsible agencies are processed into normalized representations of winter transportation maintenance activities.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising presenting the quantified winter transportation infrastructure maintenance data in a graphical user interface.

3. The method of claim 2, further comprising presenting the user with selectable characteristics in a plurality of pull-down menus on the graphical user interface, and enabling a plurality of views of the quantified data, the plurality of views at least including a tabular format and a map-based format.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising ingesting the collected winter transportation infrastructure maintenance data from the at least one vendor-independent database.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the ingesting the collected winter transportation infrastructure maintenance data further comprises communicating with an external database to receive one or more treatment vehicle reports, communicating with a road network database to receive transportation network data, communicating with a weather database to receive weather data, and communicating with an applications database to receive material mixture component apportionment data.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the ingesting the collected winter transportation infrastructure maintenance data further comprises communicating with at least one mobile data collection and automated vehicle location system coupled to at least one treatment vehicle.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the manipulating a treatment to a roadway surface and corresponding component materials further comprises initiating data processing functions that perform retrieving objects associated with the corresponding component materials, configuring one or more new treatments comprised of apportionments of the component materials, modifying and updating properties or one or more existing treatments, identifying treatments as deleted, and retrieving objects associated with treatments.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the managing a fleet of treatment vehicles further comprises initiating data processing functions that perform configuring new treatment vehicles, modifying and updating properties associated with treatment vehicles, identifying deletions of treatment vehicles, and retrieving objects associated with treatment vehicles.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the managing one or more treatment vehicle reports further comprises initiating data processing functions that perform creating one or more GPS-tagged and time-tagged treatment vehicle reports, retrieving objects associated with treatment vehicle reports, retrieving an identification of a most recent treatment vehicle report from a specific treatment vehicle, modifying and updating properties associated with a treatment vehicle report, replacing properties of one or more treatment vehicle reports without deleting associations of replaced treatment vehicle reports, and deleting treatment vehicle reports.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the managing environmental variables further comprises initiating data processing functions that perform obtaining variables referenced in an environmental section of a treatment vehicle report.

11. A method of quantifying performance and outcome of winter transportation infrastructure maintenance activities, comprising:

ingesting input data from a plurality of external databases that include a database of winter transportation infrastructure maintenance activities, a road network database, a weather information database, and treatment and component materials database into a data normalization module configured to associate winter transportation infrastructure maintenance actions, transportation network information, weather events, and specific maintenance component applications in roadway treatments;

modeling a performance of the winter transportation infrastructure maintenance activities by processing the ingested input data in a plurality of data processing functions to associate winter transportation maintenance actions with at least one of weather events and treatment recommendations, the plurality of data processing functions including

applying the collected winter transportation infrastructure maintenance data to a transportation network based on a plurality of a GPS position, a determined direction of travel along the coordinate system of the transportation network, and lane information provided within the data relative to one or more lanes of the transportation network,

segmenting the transportation network to enable an aggregation of data collected along defined segments comprising the transportation network, and

specifying component materials and apportionments of component materials in at least one selectable mixture comprising the component apportionment data to compare utilization of the component materials and mixtures being applied to the transportation network; and

generating output metrics of specific winter transportation maintenance activities against which an outcome of a specific winter transportation maintenance infrastructure activity is comparable to evaluate an effectiveness and an efficiency of the specific winter transportation maintenance infrastructure activity.

12. The method of claim 11, further comprising executing one or more program instructions resident in at least one memory module and configured to be accessed to perform the data processing functions of the data normalization module.

13. The method of claim 11, further comprising presenting the output metrics in a graphical user interface.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the presenting the output metrics in a graphical user interface further comprises presenting the user with selectable characteristics in a plurality of pull-down menus on the graphical user interface, and enabling a plurality of views of the quantified data, the plurality of views at least including a tabular format and a map-based format.

15. The method of claim 11, wherein the ingesting the collected winter transportation infrastructure maintenance data further comprises communicating with at least one mobile data collection and automated vehicle location system coupled to at least one treatment vehicle.

16. A system for evaluating efficiency and effectiveness of winter transportation infrastructure maintenance activities, comprising:

a data normalization module operably coupled to at least one processor capable of requesting and ingesting information from a plurality of vendor-independent databases, each database having stored thereon data relative to winter transportation infrastructure maintenance activities that includes collected winter transportation infrastructure maintenance data, the collected winter data including treatment data, road network data, weather data, and component apportionment data;

one or more program instructions accessible by the data normalization module and configured to be executed by the at least one processor to

1) perform multiple data processing functions to enable an effective and efficient analysis of the data relative to winter transportation infrastructure maintenance activities, the multiple data processing functions including;

applying the collected winter transportation infrastructure maintenance data to a transportation network based on a plurality of a GPS position, a determined direction of travel along the coordinate system of the transportation network, and lane information provided within data relative to one or more lanes of the transportation network,

segmenting the transportation network to enable an aggregation of data collected along defined segments comprising the transportation network, and

specifying component materials and apportionments of component materials in at least one selectable mixture comprising the component apportionment data to compare utilization of the component materials and mixtures being applied to the transportation network; and

2) generate output metrics of specific winter transportation maintenance activities against which an outcome of a specific winter transportation maintenance infrastructure activity is comparable to evaluate an effectiveness and an efficiency of the specific winter transportation maintenance infrastructure activity.

17. The system of claim 16, further comprising a graphical user interface across which the output metrics are capable of being presented to one or more users.

18. The system of claim 17, wherein the graphical user interface further comprises a plurality of pull-down menus thereon presenting the user with selectable characteristics for manipulating the output metrics, and a plurality of selectable views of the output data, the plurality of views at least including a tabular format and a map-based format.

19. The system of claim 17, wherein the graphical user interface enables a plurality of customizable applications to the data processed by the data normalization module, the customizable applications including manipulating a treatment to a roadway surface and corresponding component materials, manipulating environmental variables and their corresponding attributes, managing data from a diverse fleet of treatment vehicles, and managing one or more treatment vehicle reports represented at least by GPS tags and time tags and one or more associated maintenance, weather, or road-related data elements, so that the collected winter transportation infrastructure maintenance data from different routes and different vehicles across different responsible agencies are processed into normalized representations of winter transportation maintenance activities.

20. The system of claim 16, wherein the collected winter transportation infrastructure maintenance data is ingested from at least one mobile data collection and automated vehicle location system coupled to at least one treatment vehicle and capable of communication with the data normalization module.