Finnish know-how in mobile technology has created an excellent environment for developing applications for winter road maintenance. The winter roadmaintenance process requires a lot of data-collection, both real-time andfor reporting. Using the opportunities offered by new mobile technology great results can be achieved in process efficiency and even in company structures. The Finnish Road Enterprise is the leading contractor in winter road maintenance in Finland. It takes care of more than 50 000 km of roads.Of the approximately 1 500 vehicles used in contracts 500 are self-owned.The Finnish Road Enterprise has been actively using mobile technology in its different forms for almost a decade. The winter road maintenance process can, at the very least, be improved by automating bookings, reducing the amount of bases and personnel, in fleet and operation management, in follow-up of subcontractors, in quality management, in information services and in reporting. The benefits gained by using mobile applications have been impressive so far. Supervisor's areas have been enlarged, office personnel have been reduced by 300, reporting has become more accurate and the time needed by drivers has been reduced from half an hour to about 5 minutesper day. With mobile services for road users customer satisfaction has been improved significantly in only one winter period and many investments in in-vehicle units have been saved. For the covering abstract see ITRD E143097.
Abstract