Using Existing Data Sets to Automate Identification of No-Passing Zones on Vertical Curves

Managing legacy transportation infrastructure from a compliance with standards point of view is a difficult task. Often, even with the availability of sophisticated GIS datasets, decision makers only know the location of the centerline for a highway. Lack of knowledge about detailed design characteristics for existing highways forces transportation agencies to rely on time-consuming and labor-intensive processes when determining the compliance of legacy highways with the latest standards. For example, manual field procedures are used to determine if legacy highways meet passing sight distance requirements established in the Manual of Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD). Often, datasets are collected for specific tasks such as sign and pavement marking inventories therefore the information contained in those datasets is not consider as a solution to other numerous problems. Photographic logs of highways contain information that when properly analyzed can help answer questions that at the time of the data collection were not thought as been related to the contents of the dataset. This paper explores the use of photographic logs to identify road segments that, because of vertical obstructions, don’t meet passing sight distance requirements established in the MUTCD. Applying an automated software-based methodology developed by the authors on a 10-mile sample highway section resulted in correctly identifying 100% of the road segments requiring a no-passing zone. The underlying algorithm was validated by comparing the software output with the result of manual field procedures employed by transportation agencies thus showing the value that existing datasets can have in automating field tasks.

• Supplemental Notes:
  • This paper was sponsored by TRB committee ABJ20 Statewide Transportation Data and Information Systems
• Corporate Authors:

  Transportation Research Board

  500 Fifth Street, NW
  Washington, DC  United States  20001
• Authors:
  • Santiago-Chaparro, Kelvin Roberto
  • Chitturi, Madhav V
  • Bill, Andrea R
  • Noyce, David A
• Conference:
  • Transportation Research Board 91st Annual Meeting
  • Location: Washington DC, United States
  • Date: 2012-1-22 to 2012-1-26
• Date: 2012

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Features: Figures; References;
• Pagination: 10p
• Monograph Title: TRB 91st Annual Meeting Compendium of Papers DVD

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Computer aided design; Data collection; Digital maps; Geographic information systems; Global Positioning System; Highway traffic control; Highways; Photographs
• Identifier Terms: Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices
• Subject Areas: Data and Information Technology; Highways; Operations and Traffic Management; I70: Traffic and Transport; I73: Traffic Control;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01366517
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: 12-2575
• Files: TRIS, TRB
• Created Date: Mar 29 2012 7:14AM