A GIS-Based Tool for Forecasting Unusually Heavy Truck Loadings Resulting from Rapid Land Use Changes

Pavement maintenance makes up one of the largest expenditures for Departments of Transportation in most states. Historically over half of these funds have been spent on just Operations and Maintenance. Forecasting future at-risk pavement locations can help prevent the expensive costs associated with rebuilding completely destroyed pavement. Anticipating activities tied to new developments that cause increased truck loading can help prepare preventative pavement strengthening actions. Urban sprawl usually creates additional loading on existing pavements by adding more trips connecting new establishments to the existing network. This paper serves as the second part of a study to create and evaluate an ArcGIS-based tool that forecasts at-risk pavement failure locations by characterizing unusually heavy truck traffic patterns. The first paper focused on oil and gas industry truck patterns, while this paper focuses on urban growth truck patterns. Truck trip generation tables were linked to forecasted routes using ArcGIS. The tool then generated maps showing locations of greatest pavement damage and associated loadings. This tool can help officials make better estimates on where and how much unexpected damage will occur as a result of new development. This paper includes a case study in Williamson County, TX where construction and production truck traffic patterns tied to 93 new developments between July 2014 and July 2015 were examined. The tool predicted a massive increase in the Equivalent Single Axle Load (ESAL) loadings on specific routes (up to 750,000 ESAL’s per year based on the 2.8 million square feet (SF) of commercial warehouse development).

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• Supplemental Notes:
  • This paper was sponsored by TRB committee AHD10 Standing Committee on Maintenance and Operations Management.
• Corporate Authors:

  Transportation Research Board

  500 Fifth Street, NW
  Washington, DC  United States  20001
• Authors:
  • Alrashidan, Ahmad
  • Machemehl, Randy B
• Conference:
  • Transportation Research Board 96th Annual Meeting
  • Location: Washington DC, United States
  • Date: 2017-1-8 to 2017-1-12
• Date: 2017

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Features: Figures; Maps; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 15p
• Monograph Title: TRB 96th Annual Meeting Compendium of Papers

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Axle load force; Case studies; Development; Failure; Forecasting; Geographic information systems; Land use; Mapping; Pavement distress; Pavement maintenance; Trip generation; Truck traffic; Urban areas
• Geographic Terms: Williamson County (Texas)
• Subject Areas: Highways; Maintenance and Preservation; Pavements; Planning and Forecasting;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01629512
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: 17-05450
• Files: PRP, TRIS, TRB, ATRI
• Created Date: Mar 20 2017 9:23AM