SOUTHEAST MICHIGAN SNOW AND ICE MANAGEMENT (SEMSIM)
Final Evaluation at End of Winter Season Year 2004
PDF Version 1.82MB
Advanced Information Engineering
Services, Inc.
A GENERAL DYNAMICS COMPANY
August
1, 2004
Technical Report Documentation Page
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1. Report No. |
2. Government Accession No. |
3. Recipient’s Catalog No. |
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4. Title and Subtitle Southeast Michigan Snow
and Ice Management System Final Evaluation at end of
Winter Season Year 2004 |
5. Report Date August 2004 |
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6. Performing Organizational Code 2.44.42.1100 |
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7. Author(s) Eric G. Anderson |
8. Performing Organizational Report No. |
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9. Performing Organization Name and Address Advanced Information
Engineering Services A General
Dynamics Company 3300 Plymouth
Road Ann Arbor,
Michigan 48105-2551 |
10. Work Unit No. (TRAIS) |
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11. Contract or Grant No. 98-5436 |
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12. Sponsoring Agency Name and Address Road Commission for
Oakland County 31001 Lahser
Rd. Beverly Hills,
Michigan 48025 |
13. Type of Report and Period Covered Final September 2003 through August 2004 |
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14. Sponsoring Agency Code |
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15. Supplementary Notes |
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16. Abstract In the early spring of
1999, the Detroit Department of Public Works, the Road Commission of Macomb
Country, the Road Commission for Oakland County, and the Wayne County
Department of Public Services formed the Southeast Michigan Snow and Ice
Management partnership, naming themselves the SEMSIM Partners. The purpose of the partnership was to
develop an AVL (Automatic Vehicle Location) system that would allow the
Partners to fight a snowstorm in a cooperative effort. There have been three
phases of the program. The first
phase consisted of 40 vehicles (10 each partner) based on a standard
application designed by Orbital Sciences Transportation Management Systems
(TMS) out of Columbia, Maryland. The
second phase was developed by Orbital Sciences from a suggested improvement
by the SEMSIM Partners to create an Internet web-based system. This Phase II system that consisted of a
mini-fleet of 40 vehicles that could be viewed from any PC computer that was
able to access the Internet. After a
trial period, the remaining fleet was expanded to the present 292-vehicle
Phase III system. This report provides an evaluation of the fifth
season, the winter of 2003–2004. The
evaluation centered on determining if the system (1) provided the tracking
and reporting tools that the SEMSIM Partners wanted and (2) had the potential
to provide improved efficiency and impacted standard ITS measures in a
positive way. |
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17 Key Words Snow, Ice, AVL, Snowplow, GPS |
18. Distribution Statement |
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19 Security
Classif. (of this report) N/A |
20. Security
Classif. (of this page) N/A |
21. No. of
Pages 82+ |
22. Price |
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Table of Contents
List of Figures.................................................................................................................................... v
1.4.2 Objective of the SEMSIM evaluation
2.0 Status for 2003–2004
Season
2.4 Winter Maintenance Cost Reduction
2.6 Increasing the Safety of Winter
Maintenance
2.8 Reducing the Barriers between
Agencies
2.9 Providing Integration with Existing
Systems
2.11 Creating a Model for Other States
3.1 Non-winter Applications for SEMSIM
3.1.1 Locating/tracking all
vehicles
3.1.2 Emergency response time
reduction
3.1.3 Recording curb-miles of
sweeping
3.1.4 Recording footage cut on
vacant lots
3.1.6 Verification of any
truck-related incident claims
3.1.7 Shoulder grading and
liquid chloride application used for dust control on
dirt roads
3.1.10 Locate and inventory
culverts, light poles, fireplugs and other distributed capital equipment
3.2 Improvements Suggested by
Interviewees
3.2.1 Add an audible alert to
messaging system
3.2.2 Develop
“SEMSIM-on-a-Laptop” for supervisors on the road
3.2.3 Check maps for updates
and accuracy
3.2.4 Change emergency message
button so it cannot be activated when cleaning
screen
3.2.5 Conduct a mock snowstorm
trial run
3.2.6 Review snowstorms after
a storm incident to determine improvements and efficiencies
3.2.7 Schedule preventative
maintenance
3.3.1 Installations sloppy and
deviated from original drawings
3.3.2 Inadequate training—both
when and how to use it
3.3.3 System experiences too
much delay
3.3.4 Messaging system too
slow and impractical compared to radios
3.3.5 SEMSIM terminals are
often shared with other users and applications
3.3.6 The SEMSIM system isn’t
being used and it remains unfamiliar
3.3.7 The SEMSIM system isn’t
reliable enough to be counted on as a tool for
everyday use
4.0 National and Local ITS
Architecture
5.0 Experiences of Other
Winter Maintenance AVL Users
5.5 City of Baltimore, Maryland
5.6 County of Waukesha, Wisconsin
6.0 Conclusions and
Recommendations
Appendix A: Interviews with District Supervisors
Appendix B: National and Local ITS Architecture
List
of Figures
Figure 1. Proximity Sensor on Plow Used in Phase 1
Figure
2. Mercury Sensor on Front Plow
Figure
3. Single Housing for the Vehicle
Electronics
Figure
4. Connector System for Old and New MDT
(Mobile Data Terminal)
Figure
5. Mobile Data Terminal (MDT)
Figure
7. Manual Spreader Sensor
Executive Summary
In the early spring of 1999, the Detroit Department of Public Works, the Road Commission of Macomb Country, the Road Commission for Oakland County, and the Wayne County Department of Public Services formed the Southeast Michigan Snow and Ice Management partnership, naming them the SEMSIM Partners. The purpose of the partnership was to develop an AVL (Automatic Vehicle Location) system that would allow the Partners to track their vehicles and fight a snowstorm in a cooperative effort.
The SEMSIM system is a complex AVL system utilizing the Detroit area regional public bus system’s SMART (Suburban Mobility Authority for Regional Transportation) 900 MHz radio system to provide communication between vehicles and computer terminals located at dispatch locations owned by the SEMSIM Partners. There have been three phases of the program. The first phase consisted of 40 vehicles (ten for each partner) based on a standard application designed by Orbital Sciences Transportation Management Systems (TMS) out of Columbia, Maryland. After evaluation of this system, the SEMSIM Partners suggested an improved Internet web-based system to Orbital Sciences. Orbital responded and developed a Phase II system that consisted of a mini-fleet of 40 vehicles that could be viewed from any PC computer that was able to access the Internet. After a trial period, the remaining fleet was expanded to the present 292-vehicle Phase III system.
This report provides an evaluation of the fifth season, the winter of 2003–2004. The evaluation effort consisted of numerous discussions with the SEMSIM Partners throughout the year and post-season interviews with the supervisors of the 16 of the 18 garages that have had the SEMSIM system installed. In addition, an interview was conducted with SMART personnel who will use the system to help schedule buses during winter months. Finally, other governmental agencies across the United States that are using AVL technology to track vehicles were contacted to see how they are using the technology in their states and cities. The evaluation centered on determining if the system (1) provided the tracking and reporting tools that the SEMSIM Partners wanted and (2) had the potential to provide improved efficiency and impacted standard ITS measures in a positive way.
AVL systems are expected to greatly facilitate early twenty-first century services. But just like any of the innovations of the past, it’s going to take considerable work, experience, and time to utilize these systems in the most productive ways possible. The following recommendations highlight issues that need to be carefully considered as SEMSIM continues to evolve and moves into the next phase. These recommendations are more completely discussed in the full report.
· Review all vehicle installations and make sure they are operational.
· Have the system performance analyzed and determine where improvements can be made.
· Complete the installations of the remaining fleet vehicles.
· Host the SEMSIM system by a full-time Internet hosting service.
· Contract with Orbital Sciences to support the SEMSIM system beyond the initial warranty period. This support should include further training for all SEMSIM users and application enhancements when they are identified.
· Install a dedicated terminal for SEMSIM at each dispatch location for everyone’s use so the vehicle status can be observed at any time without interrupting another task or having to launch the SEMSIM application.
· Ensure system operation through a preventive maintenance program.
· Spend time with the supervisors to ascertain what kind of information would be most useful to their operations.
· Consider installing laptop computers in the vehicles of those supervisors who have expressed interest in this means of accessibility.
· Conduct a mock run of a snow-incident observation.
1.0 Introduction
In early spring of 1999, the Detroit Department of Public Works, the Road Commission of Macomb Country, the Road Commission for Oakland County, and the Wayne County Depart-ment of Public Services formed the Southeast Michigan Snow and Ice Management partnership, naming them the SEMSIM Partners. This partnership was formed to develop an AVL (Auto-matic Vehicle Location) system that would allow the partnership to fight a snowstorm in a cooperative effort.
The installation of the expanded SEMSIM system to the 292 vehicles began in the second week of October 2003 and was completed by the second week of December 2003. In the second and third week of December, a series of meetings was held with each of the maintenance depart-ments of the SEMSIM Partners to review the maintenance training that they received to support the system, determine if they felt they were ready to support the system and to review the installation of the SEMSIM equipment on their vehicles.
1.2 Objective of SEMSIM
The SEMSIM system is a complex AVL system utilizing the SMART (Suburban Mobility Authority for Regional Transportation) 900 MHz radio system to provide communication between vehicles and computer terminals located at dispatch locations owned by the SEMSIM Partners.
SMART is the regional public bus system in the Detroit area. Since the SMART bus system had additional capacity on their 900 MHz radio communication system, they agreed to allow the SEMSIM Partners co-use of their antenna and backbone system. In choosing Orbital as the vendor, the Partners gained an advantage in that the SMART AVL transient system and its communication system were also installed by Orbital Sciences, negating effort to bring a vendor up to speed on the communication system to be used.
The system consists of 900 MHz radio transmission from the trucks to an antenna in the Renaissance Center in downtown Detroit, an antenna in Clarkston, Michigan or an antenna at Omo Road in Macomb County. The system utilizes an asymmetric, non-simulcast architecture. Three frequencies are used with channels “A” and “C” from the Renaissance Center, “B” from Clarkston and “C” again from Omo Road. The frequency that each Partner’s vehicle uses is chosen based on its geographic operating area relative to the transmission towers.
Transmission from these three locations goes to the SMART center in Troy using a wide area network (WAN) system and from there is sent to a server system at Orbital headquarters in Columbia, Maryland. The server system is connected to the Internet that makes available all the services of the SEMSIM system to any computer connected to the Internet.
1.3 Project History
Below is an overview of the history of the SEMSIM project. The overview shows the considerable progress that has been made over the last five years in cooperation between the counties of Southeastern Michigan and the City of Detroit as well as the technical advances made and the large number of vehicles installed with AVL equipment. The web-based application allows any computer with Internet access to observe the operation of winter maintenance vehicles of the SEMSIM Partners.
1999–2000
Application based Orbtrac 100 installed on 40 trucks.
2000–2001
Second year of application based Orbtrac 100.
New web-based SEMSIM system proposed and approved.
2001–2002
New web-based SEMSIM system (based on Orbtrac 120) installed in 40 mini-fleet trucks.
Communication problems found.
2002–2003
Orbital provides additional enhancements and modifications to the truck-based hardware and web-based software to correct initial problems found.
Communication problems persist.
2003–2004
Solutions to communication problems are found and implemented.
SEMSIM system is expanded to approximately 300 vehicles.
1.3.1 System Improvements
The SEMSIM AVL system has gone through many improvements over the last five years of operation. High speed and readily available Internet service to distribute the data to the garage service centers, improved ways of sensing plow positions, a much cleaner and reliable vehicle installation and easier to use equipment in the vehicle have made the system easier to use, more reliable and easier to maintain.
After the first year of operation, the Partners realized that a web-based application, which could be operated from any computer on the Internet, would provide the advantages of easily providing the data to the garage service centers using a high speed, publicly available Internet connection and would allow the use of a low cost computer dedicated to SEMSIM. The SEMSIM Partners worked with Orbital Sciences to develop an Internet based application that has the same features as the previous application that had to be loaded on each computer that ran SEMSIM. Where a dedicated LAN line or slow dialup connection was used previously to connect each SEMSIM terminal directly to the host system, the new design can use any public or privately available high speed Internet service. This makes support of the SEMSIM system much easier.
A mercury switch replaced the pressure switch to sense the belly (or blade under the center of the vehicle) and front plow positions. The proximity switch originally used for the front plow was expensive and was subject to damage. The belly plow used a pressure switch to detect the hydraulic pressure holding the blade to the pavement. The mercury switch is smaller, more protected and provides a much more accurate way to sense various positions of a plow being down than the pressure switch that was used to detect the hydraulic pressure holding the plow to the pavement. The pressure switch seemed like a good idea since it was a clean installation and could be mounted in a more protected area of the vehicle because it just sensed pressure of the hydraulic fluid going to the plow. Unfortunately, it was found during discussions with drivers that the blade was not always forced against the pavement, but sometimes held slightly above the surface in order not to damage shoulders. The mercury switch could be set to indicate plow down when the plow was held slightly above the road surface. Figure 1 shows the proximity sensor used in the first front plow installations for Phase 1 and Figure 2 shows the mercury sensor that is used today.
b a
Figure 1. Proximity Sensor on Plow Used in Phase 1
(a. Unprotected b. Shield to Protect Sensor)
Figure 2. Mercury Sensor on Front Plow
The installation into the first 40 vehicles in 1999 found that providing a clean and protected installation would be better done with a simpler, more rugged connector system and a single housing for the radio, the Orbital VLU (vehicle logic unit), charge guard (that maintains power to the system for a period of time after the vehicle is shut down) and the cable termination block. Figure 3 shows the internal components of the single housing that protects the vehicle electronics. Figure 4 shows the old MDT (mobile data terminal) with three connectors (which often broke and fell off) and the new MDT with a single, more rugged connector that locks securely onto the MDT.
Figure 3. Single Housing for the Vehicle Electronics
a b
Figure 4. Connector System for Old (a) and New (b) MDT (Mobile Data Terminal)
The new Orbtrac 120 is an easier system to use. The display (MDT) shows a picture of a truck and visually shows the things on the truck that can be displayed. The MDT uses a touch screen to access the information. Figure 5 shows a picture of the MDT and the information displayed on its screen. From the home screen (Figure 5b), you can access information about GPS position, road and air temperature and material being spread. From this screen you can also send and receive messages.
Figure 5. Mobile Data Terminal (MDT) (a) MDT with the VLU (b) Display Showing Three of the Information Screens
1.4 Evaluator’s Role
1.4.1 Tasks
The evaluator was given seven tasks as follows:
· Work with the SEMSIM Partners to review, and modify if appropriate, SEMSIM goals and objectives and the methodology as well as the measures for the evaluation.
· Work with the SEMSIM Partners to understand the system to be deployed and determine the extent to which the deployed system achieves project goals.
· Collect sufficient objective data to allow for the quantitative measurement of the effects of the project on snow and ice management operations.
· Document technical and institutional issues that impact the project and winter storm management decision making by the SEMSIM Partners. Characterize the activities and decisions of managers and vehicle operators in terms of their need for and use of information.
· Evaluate the level of integration with current or planned (for deployment within approxi-mately three years) regional transportation or transportation-impacting programs that may influence the outcome of SEMSIM. Evaluate the degree of consistency with the regional ITS Architecture that exists in Southeastern Michigan and the National ITS Architecture and any applicable standards.
· Provide periodic updates to the SEMSIM Partners of evaluation issues and results.
· Prepare and present a Final Evaluation Report to the SEMSIM Partners.
1.4.2 Objective of the SEMSIM evaluation
This project called for evaluation of how the Partners used the SEMSIM system. Evaluation goals were to assess the integrated system in terms of capability, acceptability, and impact, and to evaluate the project’s value as a role model for other areas of the country.
General Dynamic’s plan to conduct scheduled working sessions at four of the SEMSIM Partner garages and working sessions during snow incidents was delayed by the installation procedure, which went into January 2004. The installation procedure was followed-up by training sessions for the mechanics, administrators, garage superintendents, foremen and the drivers of the snowplow vehicles which were still in process into April 2004.
Because the users of the SEMSIM system were not able to use the system during the snow season, it was decided to modify the working sessions into interviews with 16 of the garages and the SMART bus dispatch terminal that are using the SEMSIM equipment. It was felt that this would do three things: Determine how the SEMSIM Partners will implement the SEMSIM system for both winter and non-winter operations, gather concerns that need to be addressed and are not being communicated to the SEMSIM management and demonstrate to the field supervisors that the SEMSIM Partner’s management was proactive and interested in how the SEMSIM system is being received and what suggestions the field supervisors have for the SEMSIM system.
2.0 Status for 2003–2004 Season
Considerable progress was made in the 2003–2004 season. Many of the problems were solved. The communication problem between the trucks and the radio towers that has plagued the project for two years was solved by implementing advanced communication error correction protocols and redesigning the modem circuitry. The mini-fleet of 40 test vehicles was expanded to nearly 300 vehicles and training of maintenance, driver and supervisory personnel was accomplished.
2.1 Installation
Installation of the expanded SEMSIM system to 292 vehicles began in the second week of October 2003 and was completed by the second week of December 2003. A local company hired and supervised by Orbital Sciences did the installation.
The installation was to follow configuration drawings that were developed by Orbital with consultation from the SEMSIM mechanics and supervisors the previous year.
2.1.1 Installation issues
Between the time that the configuration drawings were made and the installation was started, new vehicles were purchased and put into service. The installation into these new vehicles complicated the configuration somewhat since these vehicles were different than the older vehicles they replaced. These new vehicles required changes to be made at the time of the installation.
The installation schedule was tight and required coordination of vehicles by both the SEMSIM Partners and the Orbital installers. Some of the installations took longer than Orbital had first envisioned and therefore held up the availability of the vehicles for which SEMSIM Partners had scheduled jobs. There were some liberties taken by the installers where they did not always follow the installation configuration drawings agreed to with the Partners. Some of the Partners felt that the displays (Mobile Data Terminal) were not installed in the positions agreed upon—where a driver could easily see them—but in places convenient to the installers. Some of the brackets had very narrow attachment areas and could be bent with very little pressure (see the photo in Figure 6). Instead of using a bolt and nut attachment, the bracket was mounted using two sheet metal screws into a relatively thin piece of sheet metal on the truck. In other cases the display was placed in the way of controls that resulted in them being pushed out of the way. During the interviews, several were found on the floor of truck cabs.
Sealing wire entrances and exits from the cab were not always done in a workmanlike manner and some of the vehicle’s wiring seals were violated in order to pass the wiring for the SEMSIM system into and out of the vehicle cab. These had to be repaired later by a garage mechanic.
Figure 6. Mobile Data Terminal (MDT) Showing Fragile Mounting Attachment Using Sheet Metal Screws into a Sheet Metal Bracket
A number of the Partner’s trucks have manual spreaders that don’t provide spread rate information to external equipment. In other cases, the spreader may have the capability of providing external spread rate information, but the interface is not compatible with the Orbital AVL equipment. Some of the manual spreaders have been outfitted with manual spreader sensors. The Partners do not feel that this is a lasting solution and have had several of the manual spreader sensors knocked off because they project beyond the safety of the outer periphery of the side of the vehicle.
Figure 7. Manual Spreader Sensor
An effort should be made in future installations to make the installation as generic as possible by using standard wiring lengths and standard but adjustable mounts for the display (MDT). Ordering standard cable assemblies in volume would keep the cost of the cabling to a minimum. The unused cable length can always be tie-wrapped under the dash or in some other out-of-the-way place. Connectors should never be crimped in the field. Crimping of connector pins usually requires specialized training and the use of custom crimping tools that are not available in the field.