Over the last two decades, accelerating technological changes are changing the way we manage our transportation assets.  Innovations, such as smart cities, smart infrastructure, automated vehicles, multifunctionality, and high-tech construction are redefining our transportation profession and offer a myriad of challenges and opportunities.  For example, transformative advances in information and sensor technology are leading to instant communication and boundless data. 

These disrupting trends offer unique opportunities to adjust the way we conceive, design, construct, and manage the infrastructure of the future.  This pooled fund will focus on exploring the use of the new stream of data produced by these innovations to better evaluate  and manage pavement assets. 

Examples of the technologies to be considered have been presented in several recent Transport Research Board committees and other professional meetings, including:

·        “Pilot Demonstration of the Use Probe Vehicle Dynamic Signatures to Measure Road Smoothness.” Flintsch, Valeri, Katicha, de León, Medina-Flintsch, Journal of the Transportation Research Board, 2012, vol. 2304.

·       “Enabling continuous road monitoring applications using connected vehicle data.” D.K. Grimm, 2019 Pavement Evaluation Conference, Roanoke, VA.
https://www.vtti.vt.edu/PDFs/PE-2019/Grimm.pdf

·       “Update on LiRA(Live Road Assessment).” M. Pettinari and A. Skar, AKP10 Committee Meeting at the 2020 Annual Meeting of the Transportation Research Board, Washington, DC.
https://lira-project.dk/

·       “Live Pavement Condition Data Collection from Vehicle Data,” B. Zachrisson, AKP10 Committee Meeting at the 2022 TRB Annual Meeting, Washington, DC.

“Detroit Tests Cloud-enabled Pavement Monitoring,” https://www.route-fifty.com/tech-data/2022/01/detroit-tests-cloud-enabled-pavement-monitoring/360860/

The main objective of the pooled-fund program of research is to identify, test and evaluate emerging big data stream that may enhance the process we use to evaluate the performance and manage our pavement assets.  The technologies considered will include at a minimum, vehicle response data collected by connected and automated vehicles, smart infrastructure sensors (e.g., internet of things), mobile devices and e-construction and BIM technologies (e.g., digital twins). 

The specific tasks to be conducted by the pooled fund will be defined in collaboration with the consortium partners, but it will include at a minimum the following tasks.

ü  Identify potential available emerging data streams that could be useful measuring pavement functional, safety and structural condition.

ü  Asses the ability of the technologies by comparing them with results obtained with “traditional” pavement evaluation equipment under controlled conditions, comparing them against “reference” measurements and evaluating their precision, accuracy, and reproducibility.

ü  Identify the most promising technologies, methods or approaches and define performance measures based on the information provided by these most promising data streams.

ü  Demonstrate the use of the information provided by the most promising emerging data streams for pavement, asset and performance management in partnership with consortium partners.  

Some specific benefits of participating in the consortium include:

•        Core program and significant physical resources already in-place. Operation costs shared by many.

•        Consortium participants will select key areas of program emphasis, as well as specific research projects.

•        Workforce development - scientists/engineers trained on the use of emerging technologies through master’s and doctoral thesis funded through the consortium.

•        Yearly attendance to the annual meeting, including simplification of the travel procedure for state travelers. 

For the core functions of the consortium, we are seeking at least 5 to 6 partners at a contribution level of $30k per year (more partners would be welcome). We likewise anticipate programming for a 5-year timeframe.  Additional funding may be provided by commercial partners interested in demonstration and testing ideas, concepts or technologies.