Cost benefits in Deploying a Fully Operational Maintenance Decision Support System (MDSS)

During the 2008-2009 winter season, the Indiana Department of Transportation (INDOT) conducted a state-wide deployment of a Maintenance Decision Support System (MDSS) into their winter operations strategy. Similar to other agencies, INDOT was looking for the opportunity to bring a research project into operations and provide tangible cost savings for their winter maintenance budgets. MDSS was poised to fill this need; so, with the support from upper management, the state embarked on a full deployment of the MDSS technology as a cost saving package and a cornerstone of their winter maintenance philosophy. Large amounts of road and weather data are collected for the MDSS to perform optimally and the resulting answers from MDSS could be used in an agency’s Traffic Management Center (TMC) as well. The information in MDSS would provide known areas where weather is impacting the roads, current status of an agency’s snow fighting vehicles, and forecasted locations of where hazardous road conditions may be encountered by the traveling public. This information could and should be used to inform the travelling public of: locations of snow fighting equipment (including a specific lane and direction), locations where weather (especially winter weather) may be impacting traffic, and actual road conditions (icy, wet, dry, etc.). This paper will address the lessons learned during the Indiana MDSS Implementation, and how those lessons can be applied to other system implementations within an agency. The paper also addresses the possible uses of data within MDSS for the ITS arena, including suggestions on how to integrate the information available from MDSS into TMC operations.

• Record URL:
  http://itswc.confex.com/itswc/WC2011/webprogram/Paper2983.html
• Availability:
  • Find a library where document is available. Order URL: http://itswc.confex.com/itswc/WC2011/webprogram/start.html
• Supplemental Notes:
  • Abstract reprinted with permission from Intelligent Transportation Society of America.
• Corporate Authors:

  ITS America

  1100 17th Street, NW, 12th Floor
  Washington, DC  United States  20036
• Authors:
  • McClellan, Anthony
  • Hershey, Benjamin
• Conference:
  • 18th ITS World Congress
  • Location: Orlando Florida, United States
  • Date: 2011-10-16 to 2011-10-20
• Publication Date: 2011

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Features: Maps; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 11p
• Monograph Title: 18th ITS World Congress, Orlando, 2011. Proceedings

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Decision support systems; Economic benefits; Highway maintenance; Highway operations; Implementation; Intelligent transportation systems; Management information systems; Road weather information systems; Snow and ice control; Winter maintenance
• Identifier Terms: Indiana Department of Transportation; Maintenance Decision Support System (MDSS)
• Subject Areas: Data and Information Technology; Highways; Maintenance and Preservation; Operations and Traffic Management; I62: Winter Maintenance;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01485088
• Record Type: Publication
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: Jun 27 2013 9:17AM