Operational Considerations in the Integration of Technologies for Automated Vehicle Location and Mobile Data Collection into Decision Support Systems for Maintenance and Operations

Mobile data collection (MDC) of maintenance, road and weather information from maintenance vehicles has become an important extension of automated vehicle location (AVL) technologies. The combination of AVL and MDC capabilities creates a valuable information resource to support winter maintenance and operations. The evolution of AVL–MDC provides for more effective assessment of the utilization of maintenance resources and a more streamlined process for collecting information on the condition of an agency’s road network. It can permit dynamic materials inventory control, equipment status, fleet deployment, and aid in assessing the availability of resources in emergency situations. Road condition and maintenance information collected via AVL–MDC systems can be passed directly to traveler information systems and maintenance decision support systems (MDSS), thus advancing the use and validity of information provided by various support technologies. In particular, the use of AVL–MDC can provide timely data for an MDSS program and thus improve maintenance recommendations by incorporating the expected effects of maintenance activities already performed. AVL–MDC systems can also serve as a mechanism for distributing information back into the maintenance vehicle, thus improving real-time decision making by the vehicle operator. This paper presents an overview of the types of data collected by AVL–MDC units, illustrate the overall benefit in an operational setting, and present some of the potential pitfalls of deployment as experienced by early adopters of the technology involved with the MDSS program. The paper also illustrates the importance of timely information during operations and how AVL–MDC can provide the data needed to make informed and intelligent decisions.