Automated routing for oversized/overweight vehicles streamlines workflows to increase safety and efficiency

Transportation agencies face a daily challenge as they strive to keep people and products moving safely and efficiently along our nation’s highway system.

“Moving forward, we will continue to develop configurable solutions for transportation agencies - such as the oversized/overweight routing application - to enable organizations to more fully leverage geospatial data to increase efficiency and improve overall operations and safety”
-Jay Stinson, VP Government & Transportation for Intergraph

They must balance the safety needs of the motoring public, protect the transportation infrastructure, and meet expectations of the commercial trucking industry. This is particularly true when agencies determine a route for oversized/overweight (OS/OW) vehicles to travel through their jurisdictions. Increased traffic congestion, the need to maintain and reconstructaging infrastructure, and frequent changes in the size of commercial trucks and their loads create additional challenges. In addition, transportation agencies face tighter spending restraints with today's uncertain economic conditions.

It can often take a Department of Transportation (DOT) permitting agent many hours to research the potential roadway hazards for an OS/OW vehicle, which can result in significant delays for permit issuance.

The Oklahoma Department of Transportation (DOT) and Department of Public Safety recently automated their oversized/overweight (OS/OW) vehicle routing functions with an integrated transportation solution from Intergraph^®. "We are pleased that Intergraph has offered a turnkey solution for oversized/overweight routing that will further boost our productivity, enhance driver safety, help manage our infrastructure, and improve the economic viability of Oklahoma's commercial transportation industry," said Jay Adams, chairman of the selection committee for OS/OW routing at Oklahoma DOT.

Intergraph's complete system allows Oklahoma to automatically generate safe travel routes, share temporary changes in road conditions in real-time, and log routes for simple tracking and improved infrastructure management - all through an easy-to-use, Web-based application.

"Intergraph transportation industry solutions help ensure that people and assets move safely and efficiently around the world, and help transportation and government agencies cost-effectively manage and protect their roadway infrastructure," said Jay Stinson, vice president of Government & Transportation for Intergraph. "Moving forward, we will continue to develop configurable solutions for transportation agencies - such as the oversized/overweight routing application - to enable organizations to more fully leverage geospatial data to increase efficiency and improve overall operations and safety."

For the transportation industry, Intergraph provides geospatially powered business solutions for solving complex data management, analysis, and reporting problems. Intergraph's transportation solutions combine off-the-shelf products with industry best practices and other commercially available technologies to deliver a powerful solution. Intergraph developed these applications through investments in research and development, customer projects, and business partnerships.

Our Automated OS/OW Routing application provides a Web-enabled interface that determines a safe route for vehicles. To accomplish routing tasks, the application combines your geographic information system (GIS) roadway centerline data (or commercially available data) with information pertaining to roadways, bridges, construction projects, turn movements, and other business data to build an intelligent routing network that supports restriction-based routing of OS/OW vehicles.

Intergraph's transportation software can guide you through an automated approach to routing, with existing roadway and bridge data as constraints on your agency's GIS road network.

Our solution provides state-of-the-art analysis and routing techniques to quickly optimize the path for an OS/OW vehicle, with a focus on avoiding potential road or bridge hazards. When you couple the routing analysis with the roadway data, you can generate a safe route even if you have no prior knowledge of the roadway. This improves your efficiency, reduces costs, and makes it easier to train new agents.

In addition, Intergraph's routing application provides a powerful interface for system management. You can establish settings and parameters to meet standard routing techniques and agency business rules. System management also includes user account and group management to set and manage user roles on the system.

Intergraph's OS/OW Routing leverages roadway and bridge data for restrictive routing, which ensures vehicles can pass safely. Specific functions this integrated solution enables include:

• Online automated routing - Carriers can use an online routing application, complete with mapping operations, to request a route for travel. The application uses roadway and bridge data for comparison against the vehicle to ensure safe passage. Once a route is identified, the routing application provides a map and detailed driving directions for the permit document.
• Restriction management - The application provides authorized staff with the ability to enter, in real-time, route notifications and temporary restrictions, such as accidents and lane closures that reduce a road's capacity for handling OS/OW vehicles.
• Route logging - The system logs the approved route for each permit, enabling staff to quickly recall all permits affected by a temporary restriction or route closure and notify the carriers. The route logging also enables transportation agency staff to track the volume and types of loads being moved across the state for infrastructure management purposes.

Intergraph's Automated OS/OW Routing application is a powerful tool for researching and avoiding potential hazards to an OS/OW vehicle. A Web-based graphical interface determines routing, which includes a map window and other areas for quick access to information. You can couple the modular application with an existing permitting application, or implement as a standalone system. You can also use it with your department's video log, if available, further empowering the permitting staff with knowledge about the roadways. The permit document includes the final route and driving directions to ensure the carrier is fully aware of the permitted route.

Key benefits of Intergraph's OS/OW Routing include:

• Detailed directions issued with permit
• Fast end-to-end route generation
• Automated process that accelerates workflow, reduces errors, and increases safety
• Real-time restriction management to reduce routing errors

Road, rail, and transit agencies, as well as airports and seaports, use Intergraph transportation solutions to manage and maintain their networks, keep systems up and running, and make key management decisions about work priorities and budget allocations. Combined with Intergraph services, the Intergraph Automated Routing for OS/OW Vehicle solution is offered standalone, or may be combined with applications from our partners. You can also integrate the solution with existing applications already in place.

For further information about Intergraph transportation industry solutions, please visit www.intergraph.com/transportation/solutions.aspx.