In New Zealand, a leading forestry company and a major road contractor both experimented with a system called Optigrade, developed by the Forest Engineering Research Institute of Canada originally to manage the grading maintenance of unsealed forest haul roads. The system comprises accelerometer and GPS hardware mounted on a haul truck routinely traveling the road, and software designed to assist managers making decisions on grading frequency. The system schedules grading only for those road segments that need it, based on road roughness measurements. To apply Optigrade to the management of public low volume road (LVR) networks laid out in grids rather than the dendritic road systems typical of forest operations required modifications to the hardware and the monitoring and analysis routines. Modifications to the system are described, together with the challenges and successes. A discussion of the implications for applying Optigrade to Canadian public LVR maintenance management practice is provided. For the covering abstract of this conference see ITRD number E216511.
Samenvatting