User Guide for the Decision Support Tool for Combined Transportation and Utility Construction Strategy

Details

• Creators:
  O’Connor, James T. ; Caldas, Carlos H. ; Chou, Chien-Cheng ; Sroka, Adam ; Goldman, Grant K.
• Corporate Creators:
  University of Texas at Austin. Center for Transportation Research
• Corporate Contributors:
  Texas Department of Transportation. Research and Technology Implementation Office ; United States. Department of Transportation. Federal Highway Administration
• Subject/TRT Terms:
  Construction Data Analysis Decision Making Decision Support Systems Guidelines Manuals Transportation
• Publication/ Report Number:
  0-4997
• Resource Type:
  Manual
• Geographical Coverage:
  United States ; Texas
• Corporate Publisher:
  University of Texas at Austin. Center for Transportation Research
• Abstract:
  This document is the user’s guide for the Decision Support Tool (DST) developed to help officials in the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) decide when the Combined Transportation and Utility Construction (CTUC) approach should be pursued. By definition, the CTUC approach makes the highway contractor responsible for the bulk of the construction of major utility-related appurtenances, such as underground duct banks, vaults, manholes, sanitary sewers, or poles (O’Connor et al. 2004). Recent research studies have indicated that the CTUC approach might be an effective remedy for utility adjustment delays (GAO 1999) (AASHTO 2004) (Ellis et al. 2003); however, CTUC challenges such as utility service reliability, utility adjustment quality, and how to best sell to reluctant utility owners usually frustrate TxDOT decision-makers as to when to apply the CTUC approach. Thus, this tool, developed using Microsoft® Visual Basic for Application (VBA) and Microsoft® Excel, aims to create an interactive decision support environment so that not only TxDOT decision-makers, but also utility representatives can easily enter analysis data of their utility adjustments into CTUC DST. CTUC DST can then feed back the corresponding opinions from both TxDOT and the utility industry experts, who have extensive experience in managing utility adjustments, in order to facilitate communication and coordination between both parties.
• Format:
  PDF
• Funding:
  0-4997-P2
• Collection(s):
  US Transportation Collection
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:8770f95a38e8e57431bb34b8df676942d070904b509c6de0f0e8462602cda913e5f93a287d7d6c6193a1e01b7d34e4f034b32f6fc13553263ed953f8a970c81b
• Download URL:
  https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/86689/dot_86689_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 2.52 MB ]