Abstract Manager

The Maintenance Decision Support System (MDSS) is an ideal tool for road authorities to guide their winter maintenance operations and formulate their daily logistic planning.  Leveraging each agency’s unique Rules of Practice with forecasted road conditions, MDSS acts as a virtual handbook, suggesting the optimal maintenance activities that will meet required Service Levels.  The one caveat is that MDSS relies on forecasted treatments, which become outdated as conditions and constraints evolve in real time and other application times/rates are utilized.  Automatic Vehicle Location (AVL) data provides geospatial insights to each vehicle’s activity, such as the spatial location of the truck, blade(s) status, spreader status, chemical type, and chemical rates. WSP has been working with Alberta Transportation (AT) on a pilot project to couple the real-time AVL data with the MDSS modules spatiotemporally.  The result is powerful, dynamic recommendations that respond as new maintenance activities are undertaken and update all downstream recommendations to reflect the changing conditions.  Pilot results will be presented alongside insights into the future of this intelligent technology.