STRATEGIC USE OF PMS - A CASE STUDY

Marketing Manager, Hanne W. Narvestad

Carl Bro a/s Nydalsveien 33, #514 N-0484 Oslo / Norway

Tel.: +45 / 8228 1488 / fax. +45 / 8228 1456 E-mail: hwn@carlbro.com

Manager, Jonas Persson

Carl Bro a/s

Vassgatan 2, P. O. box 118 S-405 23 Göteborg / Sweden

Tel.: +46 / 31 760 1071 / fax. +46 / 31 710 3430 E-mail: jap@carlbro.com

ABSTRACT Pavement Management System (PMS) can be applied for a variety of purposes apart from a valuable survey of a road network and location of the individual roads. Some of these purposes are maintenance activity planning, administration, systematisation and management of maintenance tasks, establishment of statistic data, and planning of strategies. A database with a profound amount of data will become more and more valuable as the filtering facilities allow data validation, which will increase the quality of the registrations and consequently of the decisions road authorities are making. A PMS becomes an indispensable tool when requirements to registration, organisation and administration increase and not least when the focus is on effective management and use of public means. When means are scares, it is very important to make the right decisions. Political decision-making also requires a trustworthy and correct basis. This paper presents a PMS applied by more than 45 municipalities in Norway and Sweden, ways of application and what the advantages have been for the municipalities. A case study was performed in two Norwegian and two Swedish municipalities and the purpose of the case study was to investigate how road authorities apply PMS today and what the differences are between countries and municipalities within one country. The Norwegian municipalities are Porsgrunn and Lørenskog and the Swedish are Norrköping and Sollentuna. Another purpose of the case study was to find new ways and new areas of using PMS by spreading knowledge and ideas across municipalities and countries. Results of the case study will be presented as well as how data are visualised in maps.

1 INTRODUCTION A fully up-to-date database with all the registrations each individual municipality may wish to register can be extremely valuable for the users and it turns out that more and more municipalities are using their data for more than optimisation of the road maintenance. We would like to uncover how municipalities in Norway and Sweden are using their PMS data, in which ways and not least, whether they use the PMS strategically. We have compared two Norwegian and two Swedish municipalities, which have all collected a large amount of data on their road networks and stored this in RoSy PMS. We are fully aware that this basis is too small to do a profound research but our case study shows that there are resemblances and differences, which we introduce in this paper. The case study is limited to the questions that we found to be of most interest and the two Norwegian municipalities, Porsgrunn and Lørenskog, and the two Swedish municipalities, Norrköping and Sollentuna are the four municipalities that have contributed to our case study. All the municipalities have RoSy BASE, which is the basic module of RoSy PMS and the module in which all basic data on a road network is stored.

2 EXPLANATIONS – WHAT IS STRATEGIC USE OF A PMS? Strategic use of a system means using a system in an intelligent and beneficial way and that the basis is a long-term systematised planning. Many municipalities have registered a large amount of information about the values that they are administering without being able to benefit from the data afterwards. This creates irritation between users and if the data is not maintained and updated, then they become unreliable and incorrect. A way to avoid this situation is to see to it that all levels - operative, administrative and political - are participating in the process and discuss what the system should be used for. In this way a strategy is made for what should be registered and who should update and enter data to the system. Furthermore, it is important to receive education in how to use the system before taking it into use – and to follow up with further education after having worked with a system for some time. Many large and small municipalities in Scandinavia have very good road networks and many municipalities have collected very detailed data without having stored the data in a PMS. In Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Iceland many of the road agencies only register road name, some also register length, road classes and a few registrations about construction years for the pavements and pavement products. These municipalities are facing large challenges as regards systematics and not least when they are to take the right decisions for their road networks. The historic will be forgotten and the municipalities are very vulnerable if any employees leave. These municipalities will not have any information left and we have experienced examples on municipalities where all employees of an agency left at the same time. Norwegian municipalities report that the requirements grow larger as to what the municipalities should know about their assets, where they are, what they are and values of the assets. We find that the need for a wide PMS will increase in Norway and Sweden and the tendency seems to be the same for other European countries. The size of the road network in a

municipality does not influence on the benefit from applying PMS, due to the fact that more factors will have influence on the result. The larger the road network the more details to remember and relate to. We estimate that more than 300 users are applying the system ranging from small and large municipalities to counties and countries. The system is applied after the same concept and does not depend on the amount of roads entered to the system. Most agencies have entered basic data such as road name, geometric data, distress data, traffic load, roadside area elements. However, the tendency shows that more and more users enter other data as well, such as signs, gullies and manholes, functional conditions and accidents. Furthermore, many users enter videos/pictures of the road network, which makes it easier to survey a road network and in many cases a very valuable archive. We found out that many users apply their PMS daily and uses the filtering facilities as they find that this is a way of having a very good survey of the road network and data registered. Furthermore, they use the possibilities of having data visualised in a map. It is possible to filter on all data entered and this allows analysis, planning of measures and quality control of data in a very easy way. The research work revealed some of the ways of using filters and here are some examples from the case study: Filtering on new wearing course and years:

• Filtering on roads which new overlay was laid in year 2002 • Filtering on roads that had the same kind of overlay • Filtering on new overlay, kind of product and road class

Filtering on other items such as distress, speed limitations, security precautions:

• Filtering on roads with 30 km/h zones • Filtering on roads with more than 50% alligator cracking • Filtering on roads with more than 10 potholes • Filtering on bus routes to be quality assured with footpaths and a reduced amount of

defects • Filtering on roads with speed limitation above 80 km/h that do not have footpaths

It is possible to filter both negatively and positively. Many people define the term strategy as to think ahead, do the optimum and be well prepared for the tasks to solve. Strategic use of a PMS means to collect as much knowledge about a road network as possible and to handle the information and optimise maintenance. This paper will describe the possibilities of an open and flexible PMS. A good PMS is a flexible system that can be adapted to each individual user. The way of using the system varies and many users apply the system for more that optimisation of maintenance. In Norway many municipalities tend to use their PMS for registration of all features and elements of a road network and for administration of various operational activities.

2.1 New ways of using PMS The tendency is to collect more detailed information in the database such as signs, street lightning, street marking (street crossings), gullies and manholes, various road furniture such as signal crossings, speed bumps, bottle banks, benches, litter bins, bicycle racks, bus shelters, etc. Below is an example on administration of signs: Conditions: The signs are registered in the database with type, chainage, location, foundation, post type, initial cost, manufacturer, age and year in with the sign should be exchanged with a new one. Furthermore, an evaluation of the condition of the signs has been made and an assessment of which signs to replace in 2004. Way of use no. 1: “Show all roads where signs are to be replaced in 2004 being in a poor condition”. A filter is used so that the system displays all signs to be replaced in 2004, and/or signs in a poor condition.

Norwegian: English: Skilt Sign Tilstand = Dårlig Condition = Poor Utskiftes = 2004 Replace in = 2004

ig. 1 F

Way of use no. 2: Combine above filter with a detailed report: This report shows all roads with poor signs, what kind of sign and location of the signs. Please see figure 2

ig. 2: The signs listed are all in a poor condition and will be replaced in 2004. The report indicates

ay of use no. 3: Export the report to an Excel spread sheet: r e.g. calculation of prices and in

Fthe location of the signs. WIn the spreadsheet it is possible to thread the raw data furtheconnection with preparation for tender documents. Please see figure 3.

ig. 3: Export is possible to a variety of formats such as Acrobat, Crystal Reports, Excel, Lotus, ODBC, Word, Character/Comma separated values, etc. The examples shows an Excel file.

F

Way of use no. 4: Sign registrations with chainages and coordinates give a visually good survey

f the reality. The sign icons support the visual impression.

o

e alternative windows, which allow the users to define

hat they want to register. In connection with sign registrations sign regulations may be added

alt spreading and brush finish, plantation of undabouts, hedge trimming, emptying of bins are possible in the service module and through

visualisation in maps gives the municipality the nique possibility of surveying road networks and road network elements.

Fig.: 4 Signs visualised with sign icons.

These registrations are entered into thwto the sign or like in Sweden a LTF program. Service tasks such as snow clearance, srocoupling with a map it is possible to define routes for the contractor, who is carrying out the tasks. Figure 5 is an example of a winter maintenance route in Porsgrunn municipality. The red lines indicate which roads are included in the route. The application of a system in combination withu

Fig. 5: A filter is applied and the map shows that the selected contractor has 19 roads to maintain this winter. Visualisation in map gives a very good survey and the small map shows where we have zoomed in. Other alternative ways of application of the system is an administration/memo module, which systemizes many of the small tasks and registers any applications or reporting from citizens in a municipality. In this way a file of defects and faults on a road network may be created. This module allows the citizens of a municipality to help surveying a road network, show responsibility

and report any dangerous defects, vandalism that need to be repaired. The module for administration of excavations also uses information stored in the database and is applied for e.g. registration of sites, issuing of excavation permissions, reasons for the excavation and registration of warranty periods.

Fig. 6: Excavation sites may be marked in the map and the chainages will be transferred to excavation permissions. If any asphalt layers were laid less than 2 years earlier, the system will warn about this.

3 THE RESEARCH WORK The empiricism made in this paper did not have as a target to be a basis for general conclusions based on statistically significance. The target of the case study was to find resemblances and differences in the use of PMS based on four PMS users and to see advantages and new areas of use with a PMS. The method for collection of empiric data was a questionnaire with 41 questions with yes/no response possibilities and possibilities of formulation of own wishes and thoughts regarding PMS. The questions were formulated very carefully to avoid any misinterpretations and to minimize the risk of obtaining an analysis result and a conclusion that would be based on misunderstandings between the questioner and the respondent. The questionnaires were mailed to the participants and the replies were mailed back. The time frame for responding was sufficiently long to minimize the risk that the participants made wrong answers due to lack of time.

4 EMPIRICISM The size of the municipal road networks of the participating municipalities vary from 128 km to 562 km and the funds available for maintenance vary rather much. In own of the years the differences in budget amounts were almost EUR 1,477,864. The budgets that the municipalities had at their disposal in the period 2001-2003 varied from EUR 341,045 to EUR 1,477,864 per year. See below table:

Norrköping (S)

Sollentuna (S)

Porsgrunn (N)

Lørenskog (N) Asphalt roads 390 km 128 km 236 km 78 km Foot/cycle paths 172 km 36 km 32 km 31 km TOTAL 562 km 164 km 268 km 128 km Total budget 2001-2003

EUR 3,376,864

EUR 1,416,104

EUR 1,023,137

EUR 1,000,400

Budget / km EUR 6,009 EUR 8,635 EUR 3,818 EUR 7,816 Evaluation 1-6 3 4 3 4 Tab. 1: To the question how the municipalities would assess the quality of their road networks on a scale from 1-6, two municipalities replied 3 and two replied 4 The two Swedish municipalities do not carry out the maintenance and repair work themselves, but orders this from a contractor. The Norwegian municipalities carry out the work themselves. All four municipalities find it important to have a good survey of the road network and the furniture and elements of the network and to have a PMS, which allows this improved survey and control possibility. The value of the road network is also important to the municipalities and in all municipalities, except one, the valuation is of interest to other parties as well and one of the parties is the political level. All municipalities have a plan for what they wish to enter to the PMS and a plan for the maintenance of the road network and the service level they wish to offer their citizens ranging from winter and summer services, road cleaning, etc.

As regards maintenance budget, all municipalities find that they have been able to render visible the consequences of insufficient funds on the basis of the PMS calculations. They have obtained more arguments and are able to increase the understanding of maintenance optimisation and this has resulted in increased funds for the tasks. Common for the four municipalities is that the PMS is applied in combination with local knowledge on the road network e.g. when deciding which roads should be given priority. Sometimes they decide to "oversteer" the optimum measures due to their knowledge about local adjustments that has not been entered to the system, e.g. future excavation tasks in streets or political targets, etc.

Fig. 7: This is a map visualising road classes: Main roads in a municipality. The visualisation makes it easy to see, whether the correct roads are visualised. One of the Swedish municipalities participating in the investigation has not linked data to a map at the present time. The other three municipalities have map linking and find that the possibility of visualising their data has increased the understanding of maintenance optimisation at the political level and has given them a good tool at both the strategic and the operative levels. Three of the four municipalities find that the implementation of PMS has influenced the decisions to increase the maintenance budgets. The fourth municipality finds that the PMS has resulted in the fact that they have been able to maintain the budgets at the present level and that they have avoided any budget reductions.

The responses on questions about which argument are the best for implementing a PMS reveals that the main arguments are documentation of the road network structures and condition, better survey, maintenance optimisation and a tool to influence the politicians to increase the budget amounts. The most often used types of data are distress data and geometric data. Sollentuna Norrköping Porsgrunn Lørenskog Maintenance optimisation in the municipality (asphalt)

4

1

4

4

Registration of all road data

5

3

1

5

System for entering and optimising service tasks

2

2

5

1

Map linking of road data

1

4

3

3

Many modules linked to the same database incl. program for excavation administration

3

5

2

2

Tab. 2: Ranking of arguments for having PMS on a scale from 1 to 5 The responses to the questions about how they use map linking, which arguments they have for having this facility and which data they most often look at are very similar. They use the visualisation to have a good survey of the network, to visualise various data types and they find that visualisation of specific data simplifies data analysis. One of the municipalities finds that the visualisation of data is essential in the political discussions. Most municipalities are looking at pavement structures and main data. The responses to questions about which other tasks they would like to enter to the system were bridges, service tasks and street lightning. The response to the question about, whether PMS should be applicable in other areas was harbours. These facilities are already present in the system, which is developed in cooperation with municipalities and other users.

Fig. 8: Roads with a specific pavement structure

Responses to questions about alternative data to be registered in a PMS reveal various responses. However, the majority replied registration of gravel roads and two of the municipalities also mentioned green areas. Sollentuna Norrköping Porsgrunn Lørenskog Environmental requirements – as to noise and dust

no no no no

Green areas

yes no no yes

Gravel roads

exists yes yes yes

Information on supply line, water and drainage

yes no no no

Faulty remarks, bridges, harbours and tunnels

exists yes no no

Winter tasks such as snow cleaning, salt spreading, etc.

no exists yes yes

Summer tasks such as planting and hedge trimming

no exists yes yes

Tab. 3: Variation in responses

5 ANALYSIS The analysis of the above empiric data reveals a number of resemblances but also differences between the Swedish and Norwegian municipalities.

5.1 Resemblances Resemblances were found in the arguments for having implemented a PMS. The municipalities find that a good survey of a road network and the fact that a PMS increases the survey and gives better control possibilities is extremely important. Analysis the responses also reveals that the municipalities find it very important to be able to control values of the road network (road capital) and how the values will develop in future with the planned measures and budget levels. At the same time the municipalities have planes for what they wish to register in the PMS, the service level they offer to their citizens. A big advantage of implementing a PMS, which all municipalities can agree no, is that the system and the calculations made on the basis of the PMS data in combination with map linking have meant much stronger arguments for and interest in the road network condition. This fact has meant that all municipalities have been able to avoid maintenance budget reductions and in three of the four cases the budgets have even been increased. As regards new facilities in the system and what they would like to register in the database, they all agree on the wish to be able to handle gravel roads both as regards work and environmental requirements but also registration of values (road capital).

5.2 Differences A telling difference between the Swedish and the Norwegian municipalities is that in Norway the municipalities carry out the maintenance and repair work themselves, whereas the Swedish municipalities ask a contractor to do the work. Analysis of the responses reveals that the Swedish municipalities seem to focus more on maintenance optimisation than the Norwegian municipalities. The Norwegian municipalities focus on registration and documentation of the road network and the fact that many of the modules in the system use data from the same database. The Norwegian municipalities see the value of centralising the road data (that all data are stored in one place) and the Swedish municipalities see the value of maintenance optimisation (to use the budgets in the most optimum way).

6 CONCLUSION If the definition of strategic use of PMS is that road agencies take responsibility in collecting the data that gives the municipality the best basis for having a better road network, then the four municipalities did well. Apart from optimising the maintenance they have found the best ways of maintaining their road networks. They have obtained a better economy on the basis of their PMS and they have started to use their PMS in alternative ways and utilised the possibility of having data visualised in order to have a better survey and reduce the risk of making any errors. A comparison of resemblances and differences between the Norwegian and Swedish municipalities as regards ways of using PMS and how similar task are solved in the two countries is not possible on a small basis like this. We find, however, that the result of this investigation reveals larger differences between the two countries that should be studied in detail. It would have been interesting to see, whether the assumption that Swedish municipalities have taken the employer/contractor roles in to use to a larger extent than their Norwegian colleagues.