Best Practices for Road Weather Management Version 2.0

Title:

Deployment of Maintenance Decision Support Systems (MDSS) for Winter Operations

Abstract:

The FHWA Maintenance Decision Support System (MDSS) prototype underwent several development cycles and three seasons of field demonstrations and evaluations ? two in Iowa and one in Colorado. By 2004, MDSS technologies were mature enough for interested private sector companies to begin to incorporate MDSS features into their product lines and begin to provide services to State DOTs. At this point, the FHWA MDSS effort transitioned from prototype enhancement to a focus on technology transfer to both the private sector and the states. Based on the national MDSS effort, as well as related activities, a group of eight states (led by the South Dakota DOT) initiated a pooled-fund study in 2002 to develop and implement an operational version of MDSS for their agencies. The study has focused upon refinement, validation, and wide-scale deployment of sustainable MDSS technology, as demonstrated in a successful operational testing period over the 2004-2005 winter. Based on these complementary efforts, it is clear that the MDSS presents a valid and viable operational strategy, but not without its development and deployment challenges. This paper will detail strategies for the continued evolution of MDSS technologies into the marketplace as well as advancement of the state of the practice of winter maintenance. Details of the pooled-fund MDSS project will be presented as one success story of deployment.

Source(s):

2006 Transportation Research Board (TRB) Maintenance Managers Conference; FHWA Road Weather Management Program, South Dakota DOT and Mitretek Systems

http://www.ops.fhwa.dot.gov/weather/resources/publications/fhwa/06trbmmgrconfmdss.doc

Date: 2005

Author:

Pisano, Huft, Stern

Keywords:

Decision support
Forecast/Prediction

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