Summer road maintenance is a critical activity for highway maintenance agencies that involves a wide range of maintenance and construction vehicles that can be active at any given time, which makes vehicle and maintenance asset management challenges. Automated Vehicle Location (AVL) and Global Positioning Systems (GPS) technologies installed in winter maintenance vehicles have the potential to support summer road maintenance vehicles to improve asset tracking and management practices, as well as other purposes such as process automation and paperwork reduction for field staff in terms of activity reporting. The use of AVL/GPS systems to support both winter and summer maintenance activities can help justify the expenses incurred with respect to hardware / software acquisition and training costs across a wide range of applications.
This report continues building upon prior Clear Roads research and helps highway maintenance agencies optimize the value gained from the acquisition of AVL/GPS systems by deploying them year-round, rather than being limited to winter maintenance operations. This report summarizes agencies’ experiences and lessons learned in using AVL/GPS technologies in summer and year-round maintenance activities. It also highlights the types of issues other highway maintenance agencies should consider prior to system procurement, provides guidance for successful transition and implementation of the technology, and serves as a possible template for agencies to get the best value out of different levels their AVL/GPS applications.
