Advanced Decision Support for Winter Road Maintenance.

摘要

Managing a winter maintenance program today is an increasingly complex endeavor. Just making sure that a plow blade is at the ready when the first flake falls is only a small part of the task. With tight budgets and the high expectation of the public for keeping roads clear of snow and ice, todays maintenance manager has to be able to handle multiple tasks or risk getting behind the onslaught of winter weather. Factor in all of the regulations about chemical applications, environmental impacts, and multiple, often contradictory weather forecasts, and you have got the ingredients for information overload. The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) recognized this potential problem in the late 1990s. Generally speaking, there were plenty of weather forecasts, along with a few companies that issued road-specific forecasts, but there was a lack of linkage between the information available and the decisions made by winter maintenance managers. It was this weak link that became the genesis for the winter Maintenance Decision Support System (MDSS).