Browsing by Subject "Asset management"

Now showing 1 - 4 of 4
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    Development of a Sensor Platform for Roadway Mapping: Part A - Road Centerline and Asset Management
    (Center for Transportation Studies, University of Minnesota, 2014-06) Davis, Brian; Donath, Max
    Collecting information about the roadway infrastructure is a task that DOTs at all governmental levels need to accomplish. One way to increase the operational efficiency of these efforts is to use a relatively inexpensive mobile data collection platform that acquires information that is general enough to serve multiple purposes. The design and evaluation of one such platform that costs roughly $40,000 is described. It primarily consists of a differential GPS receiver providing vehicle location, and a LIDAR scanner that generates geometric profiles of the area between the vehicle and just beyond the road’s edge. The vehicle collects data along the road by driving it in both directions. The system post-processes the data to automate feature extraction. For roads with simple geometry such as two-lane, undivided highways, the road’s centerline can be calculated by finding the midline between the vehicle’s paths from each direction of travel. Algorithms process the LIDAR scans to automatically detect the presence of curbs and guardrails, which is then combined with location information to yield the position of these features in world coordinates. The centerline calculation was determined to be accurate to within 6 cm in areas where its use was applicable. Curbs and guardrails were generally detected with an accuracy of better than 10 cm. The results demonstrate that it is feasible to use a relatively inexpensive mobile data collection system to acquire road centerline and roadside features such as curbs and guardrails.
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    Fleet Asset Life Cycle Costing with Intelligent Vehicles
    (Center for Transportation Studies, University of Minnesota, 2008-08) Wyrick, David A.; Erquicia, Santiago
    Life cycle costing seeks to find the optimum economic life of a particular asset considering acquisition, maintenance, operational, and disposal costs over the time it is held. The economic life can vary depending on interest rates, depreciation, maintenance, and overhead. A model was built to calculate economic life cycles for four classes of passenger cars and three classes of motor trucks and truck tractors within Minnesota’s Department of Transportation using data from the M4 information system. For class 330 snowplows in Districts 1 and 6, cost data from M4 regularly were under-reported in comparison to the Minnesota Accounting Procurement System (MAPS) from previous work. Due to high uncertainty of input data integrity in M4, various sensitivity analyses were run. Results included families of cost curves to estimate optimal life cycles for varying cost parameters. A key finding is that data may not be recorded fully, accurately, or assigned to the correct asset, indicating the need for automating as much future data collection as possible. With good data, decision makers can determine how long assets should be kept and maintained in general as a fleet, keeping in mind that results from this model are not indicative of any single unit.
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    GIS as a Pavement & Asset Management Tool
    (Center for Transportation Studies, 1999)
    This document was provided at the workshop "GIS as a Pavement & Asset Management Tool" held on February 11, 1999 (Duluth), February 16, 1999 (Burnsville), and March 3, 1999 (Rochester). The table of contents is followed by the workshop agenda and instructors and slides for various presentations: Introduction to Asset Management Systems; Introduction to GIS, Data Collection: The What & How; Spatial Data Sources; Massaging the Data; Linking the Data: Functional; Case Studies: Applications in Pavement & Asset Management; Implementation Principles: Who, What, How. The document ends with Reading List, Data Sources & Software Vendors and Publications & Resources: MN Governor's Council on GIS.
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    Rural Community Transit Strategies: Building on, Expanding, and Enhancing Existing Assets and Programs
    (Minnesota Department of Transportation, 2023-02) Fisher, Thomas; Vogel, Mary; Khani, Alireza; Burga, Fernando
    This project involved the development of innovative sharing-economy strategies to address rural transit challenges in Greater Minnesota. Many transit services and transportation network companies (TNCs) like Uber and Lyft do not provide services to commuters outside metro areas, forcing most residents in Greater Minnesota to own automobiles. Meanwhile, many communities have school bus systems and substantial vehicle capacity that remain parked and unused much of the day. This project uses a human-centered design approach to engage a community in Greater Minnesota with a population of less than 10,000 people to develop a pilot for rural community transit that could be a model for similar communities across the state. The research seeks to answer the question of whether a shared, mobility services approach to rural transit transportation in Greater Minnesota could meet people's needs at a lower cost, with more convenience, and with greater positive impacts on the local economy than current transit practices and services. Our research developed a menu of strategies that uses existing community assets to promote walking, biking, car sharing, bus sharing, and car and van pooling.