Web-based Implementation of a Winter Maintenance Decision Support System Using GIS and Remote Sensing

The contents of this report reflect the views of the authors, who are responsible for the facts and the accuracy of the information presented herein. This document is disseminated under the sponsorship of the U.S. Department of Transportation in the interest of information exchange. The U.S. Government assumes no liability for the contents or use of the information contained in this document. This report does not constitute a standard, specification, or regulation. The U.S. Government does not endorse products or manufacturers. Trademarks or manufactur-ers' names appear in this report only because they are considered essential to the objective of the document. The mission of the University Transportation Centers (UTC) Program is to advance U.S. technology and expertise in the many disciplines comprising transportation through the mechanisms of education, research, and technology transfer at university-based centers of excellence. The Mid-west Transportation Consortium (MTC) is the UTC Program regional center for Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, and Nebraska. Iowa State University, through its Center for Transportation Research and Education (CTRE), is the MTC's lead institution. The MTC's theme is " Transportation System Management and Operations, " specifically, sustainable transportation asset management principles and techniques. Winter maintenance, particularly snow removal and the stress of snow removal materials on public structures, is an enormous budgetary burden on municipalities and nongovernmental maintenance organizations in cold climates. Lately, geospatial technologies such as remote sensing, geographic information systems (GIS), and decision support tools are providing a valuable tool for planning snow removal operations. A few researchers recently used geospatial technologies to develop winter maintenance tools. However, most of these winter maintenance tools, while having the potential to address some of these information needs, are not typically placed in the hands of planners and other interested stakeholders. Most tools are not constructed with a nontechnical user in mind and lack an easy-to-use, easily understood interface. A major goal of this project was to implement a web-based Winter Maintenance Decision Support System (WMDSS) that enhances the capacity of stakeholders (city/county planners, resource managers, transportation personnel, citizens, and policy makers) to evaluate different procedures for managing snow removal assets optimally. This was accomplished by integrating geospatial analytical techniques (GIS and remote sensing), the existing snow removal asset management system, and web-based spatial decision support systems. The web-based system was implemented using the ESRI ArcIMS ActiveX Connector and related web technologies, such as Active Server Pages, JavaScript, HTML, and XML. The expert knowledge …