Managing road performance and transportation efficiency with the Opti-Grade system

FERIC developed a performance based road maintenance management system that focuses maintenance on the road segments that need grading most, thereby making the most efficient use of graders, lowering grading costs, and improving the performance of the roads. Today, the system is used on a variety of operations to manage road maintenance, to facilitate research projects aimed at optimizing maintenance operations, to provide a decision support tool for managing road rehabilitation, and to provide a means of evaluating how the quality of the running surface affects trucking costs. FERIC worked with a company in western Canada (Alpac) to complete the first phase of a study to assess the impact of road roughness on haul costs. The study's main objective was to find the right balance between minimizing road maintenance costs and maximizing the efficiency of the transportation system. The potential benefits for the company were large, since according to Alpac, each reduction of 1 minute in cycle times translated into a saving of more than $75 000 for their fleet. This paper presents a summary of the potential offered by Opti-Grade as well as the results of our ongoing research.

• Authors:
  • Mercier, S
  • Brown, M
  • Provencher, Y
• Conference:
  • Symposium on Pavement Surface Characteristics [of Roads and Airports], 5th, 2004, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
• Publication Date: 2004

Language

• English

Media Info

• Pagination: 11p

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Costs; Economic efficiency; Forest roads; Grading (Earthwork); Gravel roads; Highway operations; Maintenance; Maintenance management; Performance; Roughness; Unpaved roads
• Uncontrolled Terms: Transport costs
• Geographic Terms: Canada
• ATRI Terms: Efficiency; Forestry road; Grading; Maintenance costs; Maintenance management; Performance; Road management; Roughness; Transport costs; Unsealed road
• Subject Areas: Highways; Maintenance and Preservation;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01389613
• Record Type: Publication
• Source Agency: ARRB
• Files: ITRD, ATRI
• Created Date: Aug 23 2012 3:36AM