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Best Practices for Road Weather Management Version 2.0

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Title:

Artificial-Intelligence-Based Optimization of the Management of Snow Removal Assets and Resources

Abstract:

Geographic information systems and artificial intellience techniques were used to develop an intelligent snow removal asset management system (SRAMS). The system has been evaluated through a case study examining snow removal from the roads in Black Hawk County, Iowa, for which the Iowa DOT is responsible. The SRAMS is comprised of an expert system that contains the logical rules and expertise of the DOT's snow removal experts in Black Hawk County, and a geographic information system to access and manage road data. The system could efficiently be used to generate prioritized snowplowing routes in visual format, to optimize the allocation of assets for plowing and to track materials (e.g., salt and sand). A test of the system revealed an improvement in snowplowing time by 1.9 percent for moderate snowfall and 9.7 percent for snowstorm conditions over the current manual system.

Source(s):

Midwest Transportation Consortium, Prepared for U.S. DOT Research and Special Programs Administration. For an electronic copy of this resource, please direct your request to WeatherFeedback@dot.gov.

Date: 2002

Author:

Salim, Timmerman, Strauss, Emch

Keywords:


Snow
Route choice
Productivity
Decision support

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