TRIMM · Tomorrow's Road Infrastructure Monitoring and Management

Problem descriptionEffective, fair and sustainable road management require streamlined objective and up to date information. Advances in a range of sensing technologies and information processing have built up a potential for implementing new monitoring techniques that deliver key information for road management. The traditional monitoring techniques suffer for example in cost efficiency, time and spatial coverage, extent of traffic disruptions, indicator reliability, interpretation of physical processes, reflection of needs regarding functionality and safety, versatility and multi-purpose usage, etc. Due to these deficiencies, road management lacks widespread objective materials and condition data and hence be an effective and proactive tool for the improvement of physical and wider economic performance of the road network. Means of feedback of data into road management systems for future decision making should be integrated. Barriers to implementation of new monitoring techniques range from insufficient knowledge on actual measurements to ways of utilising information in decision making on strategic, network or object levels, as well as costs.MethodThe overall idea is to map needs for monitoring data and develop means of cost-benefit analysis of monitoring techniques and utilisation in asset management (WP2). Then, identified key technologies for monitoring pavements and bridges are investigated to improve data processing, interpretation and indicators (WP3 and WP4). Finally, aspects of implementation of indicators in road asset management are investigated to provide information on application areas, added values, and procedures (WP2).