Visualizing Pavement Management Data at the Project Level

Abstract

As a Pavement Management System increases in maturity, so does the amount of information powering it. As the level of information grows, efficiently communicating the data becomes difficult. The Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) has a long history of collecting and storing data that is electronically accessible and referenced against a Linear Referencing System (LRS). This data includes pavement surveys, contracts , capital projects, roadway configuration, maintenance activities, and more. This data has been successfully integrated from its many sources into the Washington State Pavement Management System (WSPMS). Data visualization is a key tool to utilize this vast amount of information when making pavement management decisions at the project, network and strategic levels. Commonly recommended data visualization techniques, such as bar charts, pie charts and GIS maps, lend themselves well to network and strategic analysis, but are difficult for efficient use at the project level. This paper provides an overview of the implementation and advantages of the Segment Viewer, the primary tool used for project level analysis in the web-based WSPMS software.