Dr. Yan Qi, assistant professor in Montana Tech’s General Engineering Department, presented a paper along with colleagues from Jackson State University at the Transportation Research Board’s annual meeting held in Washington D.C. in January. The paper, Current Practices of Acquiring Public Road Inventory Data in State Highway Agencies in the US, discussed the results of a survey study on the current practices of public road inventory data collection for state maintained and local highways in the US.
Highway inventory data provide a basis for many transportation engineering activities. It is required by Federal Highway Administration for every state Department of Transportation (DOT) to collect highway inventory data as part of their Highway Performance Monitoring System (HPMS). Traditionally, windshield surveys are the most popular inventory data collection method for state DOTs. As the recent advancements of computers, sophisticated sensors, and image processing, new technologies have been employed in the practice of inventory data collection.
The survey results showed that, a majority of state DOTs rely on local officials to acquire local road inventory data. Data submissions to a state DOT from the local agencies are frequently in accordance with state law or policies related to highway fund allocation. Many states also utilize more advanced methods to extract or integrate available data sources.
Dr. Qi presented along with Yuxiao Zhou, M. ASCE, James Fairly, and Feng Wang, M. ASCE.
For more information, please contact Dr. Qi at 406-496-4449.