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SolutionseRoadInfoGIS Online SnowPlow Tracking Resources |
SnowPlow TrackingHoward County, MD Real-time Snowplow TrackingHoward County’s Bureau of Highways is responsible for plowing all County roads. During a snowstorm it is important to effectively manage the plow operation to maintain road safety. It is also for the Bureau of Highways to balance manpower and dispatch assistance when an operator is having mechanical problems. To accomplish better efficiency during a snowstorm, the Bureau of Highways has implemented a snowplow tracking system to provide real-time accurate information on vehicle’s locations, road conditions, and plow progress.
EnterInfo was contracted to develop the system for the County. The comprehensive solution integrates many components from several vendors. These components include an Automated Vehicle Location (AVL) tracking system, wireless modems, GPS, plow operation sensors, ESRI MapObjects, ArcIMS, ArcSDE, and Internet development tools. The snowplow tracking solution include a County secured Intranet and a public accessible Internet applications. The Intranet application originally was developed using the GeoMedia WEB Enterprise engine.In 2001, the map-publishing engine was replaced by ESRI ArcIMS to accomplish better performance. Beyond the obvious function of displaying vehicle locations on a map, additional functionality was built into this system. This functionality includes Statistical Tracking, Vehicle Location, Vehicle Logging/Playback, Inclusion/Exclusion Zone Definition, Vehicle Symbology Configuration, GIS Data Overlay, and the display of the snowplow map on a public Web Site. Statistical tracking functionality includes the ability to capture variables such as speed, direction/vector, geographic location (X, Y coordinates), and the average speed during specific time periods. Development was done using ESRI MapObjects and ArcIMS. The data is stored in an SQLServer database using ESRI SDE as the gateway. This snowplow tracking system can be easily modified to track pavement conditions, garbage collection, or school buses.Any vehicle equipped with the GPS and modem can be tracked. Low cost switches can be connected to the modem to differentiate the broadcasted AVL signals. DC Snowplow Tracking SystemThe Department of Transportation of the District of Columbia (DDOT) strives to improve its efficiency in providing better services to the citizens. To improve its snowplow operation efficiency, the DC Office of Chief Technology Officer (OCTO) in a joint effort with DDOT, contacted Enterprise Information Solutions (EnterInfo) in late October of 2003 requesting a pilot snowplow tracking system to be completed for DC by the Christmas time. As the pilot implementation was successfully delivered, DDOT consequently completed the full implementation in 2004. Today, the system tracks as many as 400 snowplow trucks during the winter providing advanced AVL capabilities and road treatment status for DDOT to manage its winter fleets more efficiently.
The system integrates GIS technology with GPS and wireless communication to provide real-time maps and reports benefiting the managing, balancing, and estimating of the plow and salting operations. As the Capitol of the nation, DDOT maintains the highest level of security on its network. The EnterInfo team worked closely with DDOT IT department to ensure all the system components include servers, application, wireless equipments, communication protocols as well as the installation and support services meet the requirements. To provide near real-time road condition status to the public, the system publishes road condition maps on the Internet every 15 minutes. This map uses colors of road to show whether the road is plowed and/or salted. Using a browser, public users can click a road on the map or enter a road name to find out the treatment condition on the road.
EnterInfo provided complete snowplow AVL solutions to DDOT. Systems and services delivered include:
Harford County, Maryland Snowplow Tracking SystemIn order to improve its snowplow efficiency, in 2004, the Harford County Department of Public Works (HCDPW) implemented an AVL system using GPS-enabled Nextel cellular phones. The Nextel cellular phones were configured to send signals indicating the current vehicle operations such as salt, plow, mowing and sweeping to a WEB based receiving application CometTracker. The CometTracker then forwarded the data to the HCDPW for further analysis and reporting. Although the cell phone based system offers a low start-up cost per vehicle and a reduced monthly communication fee, after a year worth evaluation, the HCDPW concluded that a cell phone based AVL system does not provide the County with sufficient data frequency or accuracy needed for the snowplow tracking. In 2006, HCDPW contracted Enterprise Information Solutions (EnterInfo) to replace County’s cell phones to fix-mounted modems and convert the AVL application to ESRI ArcIMS/ArcSDE platform with Microsoft SQL Server in the backend. The implementation was successful. Since 2006, EnterInfo has provided snowplow tracking solutions and services to the HCDPW. Services provided include pre-season support, modem testing, route data update, programming, database configuration, and snow event operational Support services. Design and Install Salt and Plow SensorsEnterInfo designed, manufactured, and installed the snowplow salt and plow sensors for HCDPW. The salt sensor is a switch connector connected into the salt spreader. The plow sensor is a contact or rotary switch that is switched on when the plow arm reaches beyond a designed position. The modem in the snowplow truck automatically detects and sends the status of the salt and plow operation to the central servers.
Annual Snowplow System Report The snowplow tracking application provides the following function abilities:
On a regular basis Harford County may assign new streets, change routes or zones within the Snow Removal Program. EnterInfo provided GIS data services to import the street centerline data from Harford County GIS and update the Rout and Zone designations to the street centerline database.
Perform System Testing The role based Intranet application presents different interfaces to different users. For example, the User Admin or the Countywide Reset functions are only present to the users have the system right. The Intranet application generates various reports and maps. Some of the Intranet functionalities are: Administrative Functionality |
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