This report develops the conceptual design of the next generation maintenance management information system (MMIS), and considers its integration with other highway management systems. Maintenance management systems were developed about 25 years ago, as one of the early applications of mainframe computers to highway management. Since then, several trends in highway policy and programs, maintenance management and practice, new technologies for data acquisition, communications, and locational referencing, and advances in computer hardware and software have caused states to revisit the design and operation of their systems. This report presents a conceptual design of the next-generation MMIS, embodying advances in three areas: maintenance management approach, data handling technology, and database and system integration. The MMIS design concept recommended to achieve these advances is referred to as a "hub and spoke" approach, consisting of centralised pools of shared data and common procedures (the hub) serving a number of stations (the spokes), each with the capability to access a local subset of data and to perform specialised analyses. The prime advantage of the hub and spoke concept is that it is independent of computer platform and technology, and thus can be adapted to any of the variations of computer systems and architecture in use by DOTs today. (A)
Abstract