Manual of Guidelines for Inspection and Maintenance of Intelligent Transportation Systems Tim Bourne, M.Sc. Principal Engineer – ITS, NJDOT Traffic Operations North [email protected]

Kaan Ozbay, Ph.D. Professor, Rutgers University, Civil & Environmental Engineering [email protected]

Nazhat Aboobaker, Ph.D., P.E. NJDOT Research Project Manager NJDOT Bureau of Research [email protected]

Eren Erman Ozguven, M.Sc. Graduate Assistant, Rutgers University, Civil & Environmental Engineering [email protected]

Bruce Littleton, P.E., P.T.O.E.

Tolga Sertel

Associate Orth-Rodgers and Associates, Inc. [email protected]

Software Engineer, Rutgers University, Civil & Environmental Engineering [email protected]

V. Kivanc Caglar, P.E. HNTB Corporation

01/13/2009

The Motivation

How to improve our usage of ITS facilities?

• New Jersey Department of Transportation needed a manual of guidelines that will serve as a reference document to assist the NJDOT personnel in the inspection and maintenance of ITS facilities. • Rutgers University research team has been selected to prepare this ITS manual.

Introduction • Proper installation, care and upkeep of Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) equipment
increase the efficiency and connectivity of the surface transportation systems,
conserve the public’s investment in the highway system, and
ensure that the system will continue to provide maximum benefits to the traveling public. • Consequences of ITS equipment failures and malfunctions caused by lack of technical knowledge, inadequate inspection during installation and improper maintenance practices are
increased motorist and maintenance costs:  unnecessary failures or malfunctions,  increasing personnel and repair time,  replacement part costs,  spare part inventory requirements,
increased delays and accidents.

Objectives • The major objectives of our study can be summarized as follows:
Develop a state-of-art ITS Inspection and Maintenance Manual (ITSIMM) in the form of checklists of inspection and maintenance questions for the ITS equipment.
Develop a computer tool that uses the knowledge base of ITSIMM to enable users to conduct efficient and careful inspection and maintenance of ITS facilities. • To obtain comprehensive and state-of-the-art inspection and maintenance tools, Rutgers University research team needed to:
Utilize the knowledge and experience related to the maintenance and inspection of ITS equipment which reside with DOT personnel, consultants, ITS device manufacturers, system vendors, suppliers, and contractors.
Compile additional information from interviews, manuals, research literature, other DOT’s and FHWA related web sites, and manufacturers’ published material.

Methodology

Knowledge Base Development Steps

• The main challenge is to develop an effective methodology to extract the knowledge from a diverse set of sources:
Experts (DOT personnel, consultants, ITS device manufacturers, system vendors, suppliers, and contractors),
Manuals, research literature, other DOT and FHWA sources, related websites, and manufacturer’s published material.

• The intense knowledge base development process used in this project includes the following well-known steps:
Knowledge Acquisition,
Knowledge Elucidation,
Knowledge Representation, and
Validation and Verification of the Developed Material.

Knowledge Acquisition Step 1: Literature Review • This is the comprehensive review of manuals, research literature, other DOT’s and FHWA’s sources and related web sites, manufacturers’ publications. • This preliminary compilation of existing research studies resulted in the review of a wide variety of reports and documents including policies of
U. S. DOT Federal Highway Administration,
Institute of Transportation Engineers,
Several States (Idaho, Kentucky, Texas, Virginia, Alabama, North Carolina, Minnesota, Arizona, Oregon, Colorado, California, Florida, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Utah, Vermont and Wisconsin),
Several Countries (Ireland, Wales, Scotland and England),
the MUTCD Guidelines and,
Private Sector Reports.

Knowledge Acquisition Step 2: Expert Surveys

• The first stage of knowledge acquisition consists of sending preliminary surveys and receiving answers.

• The survey includes two sections basically.
General Questions / Information: The recipients are first asked to identify themselves. Then, basic questions about the recipient's involvement in ITS systems are asked.
ITS Specific Questions: Then, detailed questions related to ITS inspection and maintenance are asked.

Knowledge Acquisition Step 3: Well-structured Expert Interviews • This stage of knowledge acquisition includes face to face interviews. • The interviewees are identified as the NJDOT personnel/contractors highly experienced in inspection and maintenance of ITS:














NJDOT Construction and Material Services, NJDOT ITS Engineering, NJDOT Traffic Operations South, Central and North, NJDOT Inspection, DelDOT Traffic Management and Operations, DelDOT Signal Maintenance and Construction, PennDOT ITS, Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission Operations, Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission Traffic and ITS, Orth-Rodgers and Associates, Inc. Private sector companies working with NJDOT (ITS, Traffic Signal and Construction).

Knowledge Elucidation

• This step involves processing of expert knowledge in order to clarify different aspects of the knowledge acquired from the experts and other cited resources.

• The literature reviews, expert surveys, and interviews provided significant information used in the development of Intelligent Transportation Systems Inspection and Maintenance Manual (ITSIMM).

• Results revealed the fact that there is a need for the development of a software for performing inspection and maintenance operations on a touch-screen tablet or notebook computer.

Knowledge Representation • This step is completed through the development of written material including procedures, checklists, and guidelines using the expert knowledge obtained and processed in the previous stages.

Knowledge Representation

• The ITS equipment is divided into five categories after the expert surveys and interviews conducted.

Knowledge Representation

• ITSIMM is composed of three sections namely, inspection, maintenance, and troubleshooting of five categories of ITS equipment. ITS Manual Guidelines

Delivery Inspection (Acceptance)

Maintenance (Preventive & Routine)

Troubleshooting

Knowledge Representation - Inspection

• Inspection procedures consist of checklists in the form of Pass and Fail questions.

Knowledge Representation – Maintenance & Troubleshooting

Knowledge Representation – Maintenance • The maintenance procedures are simply:
Generic Preventive Maintenance: It is defined as a set of checks and



procedures to be performed at regularly scheduled intervals for the upkeep of ITS system. Part Specific Maintenance: Questions related to the equipment common to all devices belong to this category. Brand Specific Maintenance: This includes the specific questions for different brands (Daktronics, Vultron, etc.).

• In these checklists, a rating system has been applied on the contrary to the inspection checklists as a result of the stakeholder meetings. • Depending on the completion of the task, there are four available ratings:







Excellent: Totally Operative / New Good: Operative / Satisfactory Fair: Operative / Needs Minor Work Bad: Not Operative / Needs Major Work

Knowledge Representation – Troubleshooting

• It is always useful to have some common troubleshooting measures which will help one to solve the problem that appears during the maintenance checks.

• Since trying to find the problem and its solution can be difficult and time consuming, the troubleshooting issue has utmost importance for the efficiency of ITS systems.

• With this purpose, troubleshooting tables are prepared for ITS devices that basically include some basic sample problems/symptoms, their possible causes and remedial actions for the mentioned equipment.

Validation and Verification of the Material

• Most of the information given in the manuals will be highly technical and procedural, and therefore it is important to verify and validate it very carefully before actually using it.

• Upon the development of various products including ITSIMM, its checklists, the RITSIMS software, and the training content, they are evaluated by the experts and its developers to ensure their accuracy and appropriateness for the tasks they are designed for.

• Therefore, during/after obtaining the draft version of the ITS Inspection and Maintenance Manual (ITSIMM), the manual is constantly revised by the experts from NJDOT, private companies, and other state authorities.

Rutgers Intelligent Transportation Systems Inspection and Maintenance Software (RITSIMS)

Work Flow and Structure

Database Structure

RITSIMS

RITSIMS Training

Training Sessions

• Four training sessions have been held on the dates • • •

03.12.2008 and 03.13.2008 in the NJDOT Computer Lab. 30 NJDOT personnel have attended the training sessions. A brief introduction about the project has been given to the attendees. The features of the software have been shown to the attendees.

Training Sessions

• Two case studies for inspection and maintenance

• • •

procedures using RITSIMS have been given to the attendees and they have successfully performed both studies. Positive feedback have been received from the NJDOT personnel. Comments of the attendees have been taken into account and some changes have been implemented into the software. ITSIMM and RITSIMS are currently being used by NJDOT.

Conclusion • This

study developed a state-of-the-art Intelligent Transportation Systems inspection and maintenance manual (ITSIMM) that is expected to serve as a reference document to assist the NJDOT personnel in their daily activities of inspection and maintenance of ITS equipment. • The comprehensive guidelines based on ITSIMM have been implemented in RITSIMS with these specific characteristics:
A user-friendly interface for the usage of any personnel,
A unique system to perform all the inspection and maintenance checks of ITS equipment from the beginning to the end on site,
A simple database system that can allow further changes and queries,
An efficient database synchronization system to ensure the up-to-dateness of all the computers used.

Conclusion

• These tools will create cost-effective solutions to many ITS-related problems by:
Implementing efficient inspection, maintenance and troubleshooting practices,
Monitoring the performance of the personnel and equipment,
Increasing the useful life of the equipment and keeping inventory costs lower,
Scheduling the maintenance activities and recording failure rates in a more professional way.

Future Work

• There are several recommendations that can be •

implemented to enhance the RITSIMS. Among these, most promising ones are:
Addition of new functionalities related to the warranty, factory testing information, as well as the record of spare parts, and frequency and cost related issues after obtaining the required data.
The idea to use RITSIMS to be driven by the site location of the equipment with the appropriate checklists compiled among the database of checklists for that site.
A GIS-based implementation of the RITSIMS.