Identifying best practices for snowplow route optimization : final report.

Details

• Creators:
  Dowds, Jonathan ; Sullivan, James ; Novak, David C. ; Scott, Darren
• Corporate Creators:
  University of Vermont. Transportation Research Center
• Corporate Contributors:
  Minnesota. Dept. of Transportation. Clear Roads Pooled Fund
• Subject/TRT Terms:
  • Best practices
  • Highway maintenance
  • Maintenance management
  • Maintenance personnel
  • Maintenance practices
  • Optimization
  • Routes
  • Snowplows
  • Winter maintenance
• Publication/ Report Number:
  CR 14-07
• Resource Type:
  Tech Report
• Geographical Coverage:
  United States
• Edition:
  Final report, 11/2015 to 1/2017
• Corporate Publisher:
  Minnesota. Dept. of Transportation. Research Services & Library
• Abstract:
  Well-designed winter maintenance routes result in snow and ice control service that is both more effective, ; because roads are cleared more rapidly, and more cost-efficient, because deadheading, route overlap and ; other inefficiencies are reduced or eliminated. There are an increasing number of computerized tools to ; facilitate the routing process, but these tools are not yet widely used by winter maintenance practitioners. ; The purpose of this report is to provide practitioners with an overview of computerized route optimization ; processes and concrete recommendations about how to ensure that route improvement efforts produce ; actionable results. Recommendations are synthesized from nine recent and ongoing snowplow routing ; projects using a variety of computerized routing tools. Project descriptions, based on interviews with project ; personnel, focus on project goals, optimization software features used, and lessons learned. Multiple route ; optimization projects report route length reductions on the order of 5% to 10%, with reductions as high as ; 50% reported in one case. These snowplow route optimization projects show that route optimization is a ; powerful tool for improving routing efficiency but that it does not replace the need for expert judgment in the ; route design process. Successful route optimization projects rely on close cooperation between experienced ; winter maintenance professionals and the individuals conducting the route optimization as well as a highly ; accurate, snowplow-routing specific representation of the road network. Successful projects also include ; time to review and revise new routes to identify potential problem spots prior to implementation.
  More +
• Format:
  PDF
• Funding:
  06741;Project CR14-07;Pooled Fund TPF-5(218)
• Download URL:
  https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/32647/dot_32647_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 1.17 MB]
• Collection(s):
  US Transportation Collection
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:5992dc97b0992e39522eaa6d556bc1aa5355f189baedcbf81639dce0f111761e2b938585b50e82aba4e65f5ac4473093e403cf834e14284ac72b7895aee5442d