Condition Acquisition and Reporting System (CARS) - Maintenance and Construction Management Functionality
Subsystem Description
The Maintenance and Construction Management Subsystem (MCMS) monitors and manages roadway infrastructure construction and maintenance activities. Representing both public agencies and private contractors that provide these functions, this subsystem manages fleets of maintenance, construction, or special service vehicles (e.g., snow and ice control equipment). The subsystem receives a wide range of status information from these vehicles and performs vehicle dispatch, routing, and resource management for the vehicle fleets and associated equipment. The subsystem participates in incident response by deploying maintenance and construction resources to an incident scene, in coordination with other center subsystems. The subsystem manages equipment at the roadside, including environmental sensors and automated systems that monitor and mitigate adverse road and surface weather conditions. The subsystem manages the repair and maintenance of both non-ITS and ITS equipment including the traffic controllers, detectors, dynamic message signs, signals, and other equipment associated with the roadway infrastructure. Additional interfaces to weather information providers (the weather service and surface transportation weather service providers) provide current and forecast weather information that can be fused with other data sources and used to support advanced decision support systems that increase the efficiency and effectiveness of maintenance and construction operations.
The subsystem remotely monitors and manages ITS capabilities in work zones, gathering, storing, and disseminating work zone information to other systems. It manages traffic in the vicinity of the work zone and advises drivers of work zone status (either directly at the roadside or through an interface with the Information Service Provider or Traffic Management subsystems.) It schedules and manages the location and usage of maintenance assets (such as portable dynamic message signs).
Construction and maintenance activities are tracked and coordinated with other systems, improving the quality and accuracy of information available regarding closures and other roadway construction and maintenance activities.
Functional Area: MCM Data Collection
Collection and storage of maintenance and construction information. For use by operations personnel or data archives in the region.
Functional Area: MCM Environmental Information Processing
Processes current and forecast weather data, road condition information, local environmental data, and uses internal models to develop specialized detailed forecasts of local weather and surface conditions. Disseminates road weather information to other agencies and centers.
Functional Area: MCM Incident Management
Supports coordinated response to incidents - share incident notifications, manage incident response resources, and coordinate overall incident situation and response among allied response organizations.
Functional Area: MCM Work Activity Coordination
Disseminates work activity schedules and current asset restrictions to other agencies. Work schedules are coordinated, factoring in the needs and activities of other agencies and adjacent jurisdictions.
Functional Area: MCM Work Zone Management
Remotely monitors and supports work zone activities, controlling traffic through dynamic message signs (DMS), highway advisory radio, gates and barriers, and informing other groups of activity (e.g., traveler information systems, traffic management centers, other maintenance and construction centers).