Continuing Project To Synthesize Information On Highway Problems

"A staff digest of the progress and status of NCHRP Project 20-5, "Synthesis of information related to highway problems," for which the Transportation Research Board is the agency conducting the research."

"A staff digest of the progress and status of NCHRP Project 20-5, "Synthesis of information related to highway problems," for which the Transportation Research Board is the agency conducting the research."

Weather can have a profound, negative impact on mobility and traveler safety. Nationally, adverse weather is a factor in 1.5 million car and truck crashes and costs society nearly $42 billion annually. Through intelligent transportation systems (ITS) and better road weather information, winter maintenance managers, traffic managers, and travelers now have the opportunity to manage traffic and travel to more effectively ameliorate weather's safety and productivity challenges. In the past few years, weather-related transportation issues have become a priority for the national research agenda. On June 14, 2004, the Iowa Department of Transportation hosted a regional, multi-disciplined forum. The purpose of the forum was to identify Midwest regional research and technology transfer priorities in weather-related transportation research and to discuss the possibility of establishing a regional research program to support the national road weather research agenda. The June 14 Weather Issues in Transportation focus group forum provided an opportunity for transportation agency professionals, professionals representing transportation users, commercial weather data and forecast providers, and members of the meteorology community to express their priorities for weather-related transportation research and technology transfer. Focus groups were organized into the following eight initiatives: (1) Weather Providers, (2) Weather Users, (3) Maintenance Equipment & Technologies, (4) Maintenance Management, (5) Maintenance Operations, (6) Traffic Operations & Safety, (7) Intermodal Traffic, and (8) Design & Construction. The focus groups identified and ranked 25 research problem statements that would require over $20 million for first-year funding if all projects were started in the same year.

This synthesis report will be of interest to Department of Transportation (DOT) administrators, supervisors, equipment, and Management Information System (MIS)/Information Technology (IT) managers and staff, as well as to the engineering and MIS/IT consultants that work for them. It reviews that state of the practice, updating an earlier effort, NCHRP Synthesis 52: Maintenance and Selection Systems for Highway Maintenance Equipment. The synthesis addresses highway fleet maintenance issues in management, equipment, staffing, and technology. It describes the trend toward more sophisticated and complex MISs and reports on DOT efforts to develop more systematic approaches to measure equipment effectiveness and to incorporate this quantitative technology, successfully, into daily operations. This TRB report profiles specific state agency experience in hiring and retaining mechanics, staffing levels, management system complexity, and technologies. Sample shop work load and productivity reports from the Montana DOT are included.