Deploying MDSS

Deploying MDSS

This section provides guidance on the steps for deploying MDSS. It is based upon experience implementing intelligent transportation systems and other information technology. There are different approaches for implementing technologies, including commercial methodologies and those used by other agencies.

This guide identifies four basic phases for MDSS Deployment, as illustrated in the exhibit below. Each phase involves multiple tasks described in the narrative that follows. The deployment tasks will vary depending on the approach used; web-hosted, hosted client/server, agency installed, or agency developed. These differences are identified throughout. This section focuses on implementation of commercial applications anticipating that most agencies will pursue this direction.

MDSS Deployment Phases and Tasks

Planning & Justification

Project Organization

Project organization involves identifying the project team and structure for the MDSS project. The key team member is the project manager. This person should have strong project management expertise; good understanding of maintenance activities, including snow and ice control; and sound business judgment. The project manager is in charge of the day-to-day deployment effort, including directing all team members and ensuring the project is completed on budget, on schedule, within scope, and with high quality. The project manager will oversee the work of any commercial providers and ensure that the ultimate users of the system are involved.

Another important individual is the project sponsor. This should be an influential administrator within the agency who will have the authority to marshal resources, resolve issues, and advocate for the project to the senior management team and external bodies.

The project should establish a steering committee comprised of a cross-section of individuals who will use or oversee use of the MDSS. This should include those from headquarters and the field, supported by information technology professionals. The steering committee will provide policy guidance, identify issues to resolve, and communicate about the deployment throughout the agency.

MDSS deployments of commercial software will involve a commercial provider and individuals who will implement the system either from the commercial provider or from a consulting firm. The individuals who will help tailor the system for the agency are called systems integrators. At times, the commercial provider will also be the systems integrator. The agency may decide to enter into an agreement with other states (often called a pooled fund study). In that case, the specific organizational approach will be determined by the associated partnering agreement.

Feasibility Study

Those in an agency interested in acquiring an MDSS must first obtain approval of management and potentially other decision-makers such as the legislature, city council, or information technology organization. In some cases, estimating costs and providing a general indication of benefits is sufficient to get the necessary approval. In other cases, decision-makers may request extensive analysis and justification. For the latter, a feasibility study or business case is often used. In many state and local governments, there are established processes that feasibility studies must follow. Agencies should check on the requirements of their particular agency.

Feasibility studies typically involve identifying user and agency needs and alternatives, and their associated benefits, costs, and risks.

Needs

A needs analysis is completed during the feasibility study to identify what information the system is to provide and what functions it will perform. These needs are similar to the requirements definition identified later in this guide, but are generally less detailed. Representative users of the system should be involved in a process to identify these needs and their priorities.

Alternatives

There are a variety of ways to determine alternatives for MDSS deployment. Alternatives can be dictated by such things as:

• Whether to use an MDSS which is web-hosted, hosted client/server or implemented at agency sites
• Whether to implement commercial software or develop customized software
• The extent of technology used (for example, MDSS with or without automated vehicle location technology)
• The extent of geographic implementation (for example, only part of the system or statewide)
• Whether to phase implementation
• Whether to partner and pool resources with other state or local transportation agencies
• The level of integration with other systems such as: maintenance management systems, inventory control, and traffic systems

Each alternative will have different degrees of benefits, costs, and risks.

For example, if an agency evaluates implementing commercial software compared to developing customized software, it might find that a commercial software implementation has somewhat fewer benefits because it is not uniquely tailored to the agency. However, the commercial software cost and risk may be lower than customized development. MDSS with automated vehicle location capabilities could deliver more benefits but would cost more and could be higher risk. MDSS initially can be deployed on only a few routes and later expanded to other routes and maintenance facilities. This also would have increased cost and risk. Detailed information regarding these new routes such as their physical characteristics, availability of weather forecasts, and pavement condition information would have to be collected in order for them to be accurately displayed.

By examining each alternative on the basis of benefit, cost, and risk, the agency and its authorizing decision-makers can decide whether to go forward with MDSS deployment and, if so, how.

Benefits

Benefits are the reasons to pursue any new technology. However, identifying and quantifying benefits is often considered the most difficult aspect of performing a feasibility study. To justify MDSS, benefits should exceed costs. This step requires that specific functions and features be translated into specific benefits to the agency.

MDSS benefits are likely to include: reducing costs of labor, materials, and equipment; increasing public safety; increasing mobility; improving maintenance levels of service; and enhancing productivity.

Benefits should be quantified wherever possible. Quantified benefits are also called tangible benefits. Where benefits are not quantified, they are considered intangible benefits. Identifying quantified benefits requires good performance measurement and cost information. It also requires professional expertise that agencies may not have. One way to estimate benefits is to base them upon the experience of other agencies.

Where benefits cannot be reasonably quantified, intangible benefits should be used. Here, the agency identifies the type of benefit based upon case study information from elsewhere as well as by using professional judgment. Often such information is sufficiently compelling to convince decision-makers to authorize the MDSS effort.

(Photo courtesy of the Oregon Department of Transportation)

Estimating Costs

The cost analysis should identify all costs over the life-cycle of the MDSS system.

The agency should calculate two types of costs:

1. Planning through implementation costs
2. Annual operating costs

The following exhibit lists typical costs and provides a template for identifying costs over the life of the system.

Cost Calculation Template

Cost	Year 1	Year 2	Year 3	Year 4	Year 5	Year 6	Year 7	Year 8	Year 9	Year 10
A. Planning through implementation costs
1. MDSS license fees or web-hosting fees
2. Contract software integrator
3. Agency information services staff
4. Agency user staff
5. Other agency support staff
6. Hardware
7. Telecommunications
8. Travel expenses
9. Training
10. Overhead
B. Annual operating costs
1. MDSS maintenance fee
2. Web hosting fee
3. Weather forecast provider
4. Other agency support staff
5. Hardware capital recovery
6. Telecommunications
7. Travel
8. Training
9. Overhead
C. Total

The cost of an MDSS deployment can vary depending upon the configuration of the deployment. A significant operating cost can be that of the weather forecast provider.

Assessing Risks

All projects have risks that may affect project completion and estimated costs. Some of these risks are addressed by preparing detailed cost estimates and applying uncertainty factors while estimating costs. However, other risk factors must also be considered. These risks are more qualitative in nature, such as management support or user involvement. These factors should be evaluated to determine if the project is a high or reasonable risk project.

Preparing the Financial Summary

In this step, benefits, costs, and risks associated with the project are summarized and compared. These are brought together with benefits over the system lifecycle to provide a total benefit-cost-risk picture.

Implementation Plan

The implementation plan identifies the tasks, timeframes, resource requirements, and work products necessary to implement the MDSS. The plan will be done on a preliminary basis during the Planning and Justification phase, because a commercial provider and system integrator has not yet been selected. Once that occurs, the vendors will prepare an updated plan by which the project will be managed.

Organizational Change Management

This phase spans the life of the project and involves the planning, design, and development of an organization change management and communications program.

Change management helps to minimize the depth and length of disruption brought on as a result of major change, such as the implementation of an MDSS. People are rarely comfortable with change – even change that appears positive. Much, if not most, of this discomfort is due to uncertainty. Employees and managers should assume equal responsibility for helping to minimize discomfort through knowledge and skill development, clarity of leadership, and open communications.

A department-wide MDSS implementation project is not just a systems implementation; it is a large process change effort. A successful MDSS implementation requires analysis of business processes and procedures, organization objectives, services, roles, and responsibilities.

Like any new system, users must be trained on how to use the MDSS. In addition, implementation will require users to take an active role in configuring the MDSS to process their information and meet their needs.

A typical change management program should include:

• Strong project sponsorship by a senior administrator
• User involvement in system design and configuration
• An organizational readiness assessment, which determines what users need
• A communications program, including newsletter inserts, web site information, and presentations
• A change agent program, involving individuals throughout the agency

One approach for facilitating organizational change management is to phase the implementation. For example, the MDSS might be used initially as a strategic tool for advance forecasting and predicting event duration/severity by snow operations managers. This can result in budget savings. Once these managers have confidence in the system, they can help sell it to line winter maintenance personnel who will use it for tactical purposes such as to develop treatment recommendations.

Acquisition

Process Analysis

Benefits from the MDSS will only be realized if maintenance personnel change their processes to capitalize on the route-specific forecasts and treatment recommendations presented by the system. There should be an initial process analysis to think through how MDSS capabilities will change specific snow and ice decision-making processes and provide the greatest benefits. There should be workshops with future MDSS users and an MDSS expert to understand current processes and map out future ones. The new processes will form part of the basis for the requirements in the next task.

Requirements Definition

One of the most important steps in the deployment process is defining requirements for the MDSS. Requirements are the basis for communicating to vendors what the agency wants in a system. They also become part of the criteria for evaluating a system. There are two basic types of requirements: functional and technical. Functional requirements identify what functions the system is to perform. An example of a functional requirement would be: "Develop a recommendation for anti-icing treatment based upon weather and pavement conditions." Technical requirements specify the hardware, operating system, and communications environment that the agency desires. An example of a technical requirement would be: "The system shall operate on the Windows computing platform." A special type of requirement is one that addresses performance such as what computer response time or communication time is expected from the MDSS.

The requirements definition process should involve a cross-section of MDSS users from headquarters and the field. The process should include workshops and interviews to identify requirements and set priorities.

Agencies considering procuring MDSS should acquire the National Center for Atmospheric Research-developed "MDSS Functional Specification Template and Procurement Guidance" document, which provides materials agencies can use when compiling a procurement package. A procurement package includes:

• Candidate functional requirements for MDSS products and services
• Information that DOT personnel can use to evaluate prospective MDSS services
• Questions that could be asked when interviewing prospective vendors

The functional specification template is available on the National Center for Atmospheric Research web site.[5]

There are several communication methods that can be deployed to support MDSS. Each method varies in speed, availability, and cost. These methods are compared in the following exhibit.

Communication Methods

Dial Up
Availability:	Extensive; available in most remote locations
Speed:	Slow
Cost:	Low
DSL
Availability:	Moderate, based on telephone network; may not be available in remote locations
Speed:	Variable, depends on distance from provider; can be slow as dial up or fast as cable
Cost:	Moderate
Broadband Cable
Availability:	Moderate, available from cable television & other providers; may not be available in remote locations
Speed:	High
Cost:	Moderate
Satellite
Availability:	Extensive; available anywhere
Speed:	Moderate; lower than cable or DSL
Cost:	High
Cellular
Availability:	Moderate, available from most cellular phone providers; can be used for mobile data collection; may not be available in remote locations
Speed:	Variable; slower than DSL, cable and possibly dial up
Cost:	High

Other considerations relate to the agency's software approach. For example, if a DOT were implementing a web-hosted service, then the required bandwidth would be dependent on the requirements of the provider. Some systems use very small bandwidth as only minimal graphics are sent from the central server to the end users. The opposite may be true of other commercial systems if they are heavily dependent on sending graphics or large files.

If a DOT were to deploy a version of MDSS internally, it would need sufficient bandwidth to input observations and large model files. In addition, it would need to communicate with remote users to refresh displays and return data requests.

The cost to an agency for communications will depend upon its current communications infrastructure, and the particular software deployed. If an agency can use existing communications infrastructure, it can minimize costs. In implementing MDSS software, the agency also must account for agency security requirements. This includes firewall security and permissions for different levels of access by different system users.

Select Commercial Provider

This includes the development of a request for proposal (RFP) to select the commercial provider, review of the commercial providers' proposals, review of product offerings through demonstrations or other means, selection of an MDSS and the system integrator, and negotiation of the contract. The system integrator may be the commercial provider or a different company such as a consulting firm. The system integrator will help install and configure the software to meet the requirements, develop interfaces to and from existing systems, define conversion requirements and processes, provide training, and support the implementation. The system integrator also may participate in post-implementation activities.

When acquiring software, agencies must sign license agreements with commercial providers. These license agreements protect the proprietary nature of the MDSS and limit the ability of the agency to use the associated intellectual property. The price for the MDSS will be determined by the provisions of the license, which is often based upon the number of system users, the number of forecast points and the complexity of the forecast routes.

Commercial providers upgrade systems over time to implement additional features and capitalize on new technology. To obtain these upgrades, agencies will typically need to pay an annual maintenance cost. Implementing upgrades will require many of the same deployment steps identified in this section.

Once a system is selected, an agency will conduct negotiations and ultimately agree to a contract with the vendor consistent with its organization's contracting process.

Implementation

Acquire & Install Hardware

If the MDSS is web-hosted the hardware requirements focus on providing adequate communications access for the users and providing work stations, including laptop computers and in-vehicle or handheld devices to communicate with the hosted application. If the MDSS is hosted client/server, or installed entirely at the agency, the agency will need to provide hardware and communications systems upon which to operate the software.

Install & Test Software

Software to be operated at agency sites will need to be installed and tested to ensure it is operating properly.

Design Configuration, Extensions, & Interfaces

During this task, the commercial provider, the system integrator, and the users work together to relate the state's requirements to the capabilities of the software in order to determine how the software will be configured to meet the users' requirements. Also included in this task is the design of interfaces to the existing systems and possible modifications to those existing systems if they are needed to support the new MDSS. Any extensions to the core software would also be designed at this point.

Configure Software

Depending on the system, configuration can include a number of tasks but usually involves setting up validation and descriptive tables; identifying how calculations will work, including limits, and other variables; creating user-defined fields; modifying reporting structures; updating screens; and creating user roles and related security. MDSS configuration likely will include such things as: information about pavement characteristics for the pavement temperature model, chemical types, and plow route information, as well as rules of practice for each maintenance area. Configuration requires a considerable amount of thought and time by agency personnel.

(Photo courtesy of the Portland National Weather Service Office)

If additional capabilities are needed to meet mandatory requirements, they would be defined during this task to be developed as extensions to the core software, rather than as modifications.

Develop Extensions & Interfaces

Any extensions to the core MDSS software are developed in this task. As stated earlier, modifications to the code of the core system should be avoided. These extensions represent additional functionality that would integrate with the core system. These modules would be developed by the commercial provider or systems integrator.

One of the key interfaces is likely to be between the MDSS and the agency's maintenance management system. Maintenance management systems typically keep track of labor, materials, and equipment usage, and this information should be reconciled between the two systems. Likewise, some maintenance management systems perform analysis of the level of service provided for winter maintenance, and the MDSS information can contribute to this analysis.

Conduct Testing

Testing is done to confirm that the MDSS configuration works correctly, to validate that the interfaces correctly transfer incoming and outgoing data, and to ensure reports and screens work correctly. This is done on parts of the system at first, and then on the system as a whole. The final stage of testing is a user acceptance test where the users perform extensive testing on the system to make sure all parts meet the requirements, that the system is configured, that the interfaces and any extensions were developed as specified in the design, and that all hardware and communications components work as required.

Conduct Training

User training is a key factor in the success of the project. A training program is developed and presented for the participants of the pilot, updated to reflect the findings of the pilot, and presented to the remaining users shortly before implementation. The training program should include role-based modules that address the business processes first and how the system supports those processes second. Role-based training focuses on the processes to be performed rather than just the capabilities of the software. The exhibit at the right is a sample outline for user training.

Training can either be provided by the commercial provider, system integrator or in-house personnel.

Technical staff will also need to be trained for the hosted client/server and the agency installed deployments so that staff can help support the agency-side applications.

Conduct Pilot

A pilot should be conducted at one of the field sites. The employees of that site and the central staff receive the initial MDSS training described above and conduct the pilot. During the pilot, the implementation team will be integrally involved to answer questions and resolve errors. At the end of the pilot, an assessment will be done by the team and the participants to determine which, if any, outstanding issues need to be resolved before going live statewide. Additional time is set aside for resolving issues and making adjustments prior to beginning the statewide rollout. Further pilot testing may be required to ensure that the system changes work properly and for the agency to be confident that the system is ready.

Implement

Implementation involves deploying both the hardware and software for production operation. It also includes conversion of data if necessary. During implementation, follow-up is also needed to confirm that the system is operating as expected, and to identify and correct any problems. The implementation should be rolled out to locations incrementally if possible.

Manage Project

Other key tasks performed throughout the implementation include project management, change management, and risk management.

Post-Implementation Support

This task provides follow-up training to users, addresses any problems or issues users may be experiencing and evaluates how the MDSS is performing.

(Photo courtesy of the Oregon Department of Transportation)

Use & Evaluation

Continue Process Change

Once the MDSS is up and running, there is a need to continue to refine adverse weather decision processes based on how maintenance personnel are using the system. Often, it takes several years for some personnel to become comfortable with a new system. Managers should continue to monitor use of the MDSS and share lessons learned throughout the agency. The agency may also want to establish an MDSS users group with members from across the agency who can share ideas on how to use the system for their maximum benefit.

Evaluate Benefits

If the agency wants to ensure that benefits from the MDSS are realized, it should set up a process to evaluate those benefits over time. Using the benefits in the feasibility study as a baseline, knowledgeable personnel can help the agency establish an evaluation framework to collect information about tangible and intangible benefits realized. The agency also can collect lessons learned from different parts of the organization and communicate these agency-wide.

Conduct Ongoing Training

Training must be provided on at least an annual basis to ensure that maintenance personnel know how to use and capitalize upon the MDSS. This is because personnel change through promotions or vacancies. Even individuals who are previously trained can benefit from refresher courses, training on new capabilities, or even ongoing coaching in use of the system.

(Photo courtesy of the Montana Department of Transportation)

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