Vermont Transportation Research Collaborative 2015
VTrans Strategic Plan – Goal #2 - Surfacing Research Questions
Goal 2: Preserve, maintain and operate the transportation system in a cost effective
and environmentally responsible manner.
o Maintain pavement, structures and other transportation system assets in a state of good
repair
o Implement an Asset Management System and integrate it with Planning and
Programming (budget decisions).
o Minimize the environmental impacts of the transportation system.
Comments and Ideas generated June 16th:
(The following notes were taken to capture the brainstorming session of the specific goal.
These are meant to inform ongoing conversation and problem statement development among
researchers and staff)
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What qualifies as an asset compared to an asset management system? The product that
we use for transportation functions as an asset itself, such as roads, signs and bridges.
Data needs to be easy to get out. What is an asset? With varying asset definitions across
the states and varying jurisdictional practices within those states, consideration of
ecological assets could be useful. Who is held responsible for data collecting?
Traffic data, usage, flow data of transportation assets needs to be accessible.
Prioritization tool of overlapping transportation priorities: This would be collaboration
with other agencies that would focus on issues such as cost risk reduction, energy
consumption, aquatic organism passage, flood resiliency, and wildlife connectivity.
Asset management: The SRF partnered with EPA is conducting a cost and effectiveness
analysis as part of the decision making process, within the projecting costing project. It
attempts to calculate the net present value calculation for construction, building, and
replacement cost.
Asset maintenance, state of good repair: Right now they are focusing on the getting
“sufficiency” of bridges as one number. They are trying to review the asset management
techniques for the different structure components. The components age and degrade at
different rates; no process exists to analyze the varying deterioration rates. It could be
helpful to survey other states to find out who might have a system we could use.
Lack of rail-system inventory in regards to historic resources along those corridors, it is
ideal to have a larger inventory and documentation process of the railroad corridors
across the state. This would help us to have a better understanding of those historic
resources.
Data access and ensuring the information collected is valuable for future projects and the
climate scenario changes. It could work with the historic rail corridor project.
Accelerated bridge construction: Many issues such as quality control, cradle to grave
management of the bridge from inception, and cost-saving options.
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Accelerated bridge construction: Thing such as performance measures, KPI for different
programs, and internal KPI may be easier than indicators for the general public.
Concrete repair project is hitting an issue where there are not deterioration models. There
is also an issue with maintenance in regards to contractors and vendors; there is a lack of
training with the contractors and vendors. Asset management is also an issue, a
movement across the country led by FHWA is BRIM, a system that if implemented could
become a backbone of the state.
Data and inventory information is required for asset management systems. How can we
collect the data in the right ways so it can be fed into the deterioration models.
Evaluating existing assets: We are interested in historic bridges and their risk from
flooding and other land use change.
Bridge in a backpack: Maine DOT innovation is a good example of what we might look
to.
History of road-building: Material research should be focused on this issue. Pavements
can be made by an asphalt binder. UVM should focus energy on researching chemistry of
asphalt binders.
Comprehensive package of actions to maintain transportation assets (physical
infrastructure as well as associated environmental assets) which would recognize
undesirable feedback loops that will affect the transportation assets.
Recommendations for the implementation of salt-reduction and brine-usage on
infrastructure to reduce impact on infrastructure and state fleet health.
New Section TSMO: This section is used to measure performance of their new section. It
should ask questions like: “What are driver expectations? And how do we meet them in
operations?”
Asset management and data needs: The more the agency can act as the backbone of asset
management the greater the ability to consolidate the data collection and management for
the state (in a state-wide database).
Better Back Roads program: How to best target treatments on rural roads that minimize
erosion, understand the transport of sediments. This needs to be a more thorough study.
Risk management: A comparison of different actions/techniques: Should risk
management be used as a decision support tool for the comparison of disparate assets?
Could it be used for asset management decision support?
Inclusion of risk/criticality in asset management: EPA & AWWA have standards out
which could be called upon. Is the infrastructure redundant?
Crowd-sourced data for asset management: To be rolled out, click-to-fix. How could that
data be available and used?
Application of complex computational techniques: There is modelling and simulation
potential with the data in hand. We need to find ways to transfer it to the University for
Research Use.
Enhance the asset life cycle cost work: Incorporate a more comprehensive life cycle
review by taking into account more than the least-cost option, but also most effective for
Vermont in meeting goals related to low energy use.
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Data needs to be easy to get out as well. What is an asset? With varying asset definitions
across the states and varying jurisdictional practices within those states, consideration of
ecological assets could be useful. Who is held responsible for data collecting?
Testing of pervious materials in cold climates: How do they respond? We need guidelines
on where to use them. Could price-drops allow for more widespread use? What are
options for encouraging the use of reliable alternatives?
Permeable paving solutions: Would such materials have an opportunity to allow for the
flow of water where vegetation is not desired, but storm-water drainage is a concern
Green storm-water infrastructure: How can pervious cover be used in VT? This is an
opportunity to invest and continue research into pervious concrete such as precast panels
and recycled-tire matrix.
We need to consider the cost-effectiveness of river systems and repairing river systems.
Vegetation management within VTrans has a right of way. There is currently a lack of
research for the decision making processes which effects controlling the spread of
invasive species.
Asset management with landscape installations: We would like to determine the present
condition of landscapes, work to develop a program structure.
It would be nice to get a better handle on the state of vegetation. Another big issue is
controlling the spread of invasive species.
How to measure the reduction of environmental impacts: The expansion of data of the
reductions is necessary for complete research.
Identify the most cost-effective method for slope restoration especially on riparian
corridors, which materials have the best return on investment on investment for
sustainable riparian restoration, do they add to green storm-water infrastructure, and low
impact design? Research using woody plant materials for bio-retention, what are the best
materials, what is the best return on investment for sustainable riparian restoration, do
they add to green storm-water infrastructure, and low impact design
We should key in on our return on investment in the natural environment in terms of
resiliency, as well as its ability to recover from climatic events.
A review of the design thought process and approach is recommended, it could catch
missed opportunities in the development of assets to maintain Vermont’s qualities that
make it unique. Vermont is like no other place, and we need to work to maintain the
special natural qualities of our state.
Development of decision support tools looking at the green infrastructure surrounding
roads and bridges and how the management of green infrastructure affects the road
infrastructure.
UVM Collaboration: A current collaboration with UVM focuses on researching the
conveyance of roads for storm-water, specifically how effective are the surfaces in
delivering water. Right now they use a computer model to determine which areas of
impervious cover deliver more water, in attempt to correlate it with water quality. The
biggest question now is, is the model reliable?
Implementation of state-wide storm water permits: This would be a state owned system;
would be a regulatory requirement; ongoing research addressing the optimization of life
cycle costs and performance of different treatment practices and their maintenance needs
in alignment with Transportation assets.
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Exploration of fees and fee structures which encourage behavioral change to reduce GHG
emissions and encourage alternative technologies could be implemented. They would
focus on fuels, modes, and looking for an alternative to gas-tax to fund transportation
infrastructure.
Economic analyses: This would be an opportunity to take into account external costs,
trying to establish a dollar value for materials and lifecycle.
Economics of road-clearing and the environmental impact of road-clearing:
What are the economic and environmental impacts of the current practices?
Bridge-aesthetics: What is a good-looking bridge? How do you measure this?
VT State heritage tourism industry: Is there a way to look at the transportation corridors
to improve the visual qualities of the heritage corridors and support the economy? We
need an analysis of historic bridges and the costs of repairing these resources. Are there
other-funding opportunities to pull historic assets out of the regular prioritization stream
in order to move those projects forward?
Costs/benefits of more intrinsic environmental resources and historic resources:
How much is it worth to have wildlife connectivity for the NE to allow for movement of
species in a period of climate change?
Defining assets and coming up with research ideas: There is a need to locate funding,
which would support the need for maintenance and management.
General Questions:
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What are the relationships between the conditions of road surface and the snow and ice
control costs? Is there a point where repairing improving the surface reduces the control
costs?
How can AVL be used to collect that data?
There is a lack of understanding regarding service life and what is service life as well as
balancing the ecological impacts versus of the costs of culvert replacement. What is a
reasonable cost for infrastructure investments?
Integration of existing data sources – This agency has the information but how can it be
integrated into agency operations and decision making (WIMS, RWIS)?