Application of Location Based Service Technology in ...

Application of Location Based Service Technology in Road Maintenance Klahan Tarugsa1, Wit Ratanachot1, Koson Janmonta1, Koonnamas Punthutaecha1, Somsuk Thumajarusiri1 1

Department of Rural Roads, Ministry of Transport, Thailand

Abstract Department of Rural Road, Thailand (DRR) has been collecting road condition data based on two methods, firstly is road survey vehicle for collecting International Roughness Index (IRI) and pavement distress, and secondly by visual inspection by DRR inspectors. The field inspectors have to record road condition, evaluate maintenance requirement by using survey form, and prepare summary report. This process does not only time consuming but also need well trained inspectors for field inspection as well. Also the collected data need to be imported the survey data in the Pavement Maintenance Management System (PMMS). This study therefore applies the Location Based Service (LBS) technology based on Global Positioning System (GPS), communication network, and mobile device to lessen the process of the conventional data collecting method. The researchers have developed the mobile application on tablet to help inspectors to collect data easily for routine maintenance. The data comprise of four groups which are road assets, road conditions and maintenance requirement works, actual maintenance works and road network evaluation. The data can be displayed on a map correctly which can enhance the efficiency for field inspectors’ operation, especially on data collection and maintenance monitoring. 1. Background and purpose of the study Bureau of Maintenance under the Department of Rural Roads (DRR) has a mission to manage and integrate maintenance system and also oversight on the restoration and maintenance of rural roads. The bureau has brought the knowledge of the management, maintenance which are integrated with geographic information and information technology (Geographic information system: GIS). This applications has been in used since 2004. The bureau has been developing various systems to help in decision making such as Central Road Database (CRD), Pavement Maintenance Management System (PMMS). These maintenance system has been used for prioritising the maintenance project and the budget allocation. The importance to obtain data to use in budget allocation and selecting of maintenance methods is to survey the road conditions and import into the maintenance management system which can be separated in to 2 methods; 1. Survey for the International Roughness Index (IRI) and surface conditions 2. Visual inspection but this method is relying on the local officials who survey and report the condition assessment which is time consuming and need many well-trained manpower. At the present, the advancement of computer and communication tools makes device smaller but with higher capacity including Location Based Service (LBS), which is a standard function in all the devices especially in the tablet computer. Therefore, this project aims to study and analyze the advantages and limitations of the technology of the tablet computers to assist in collecting and reporting road conditions using its technology for managing road maintenance system. It is believed to increase efficiency of data collection and reporting road conditions, also it could support planning 1

and oversight activities carried out by the bureau of maintenance. It is also connected and integrated with maintenance management systems, such as CRD and PMMS effectively.

2. Literature review 2.1 The present DRR Maintenance process From the study of maintenance process within DRR [1], it can be classified into five stages, as detailed in Figure 1 below, 1. Field Survey: all the data, such as the type of damages, maintenance methods, etc., will be recorded in the field survey book. 2. Record data in the given form: The data from the field survey then will be recorded in the form which given by the Bureau of the maintenance. 3. Record data into the maintenance management system: for the data which are needed to fill in the system, officials must continue to fill data from the form into the system, such as degree of damages. 4. Run data, update or amendment data: after successfully completed the recording data. 5. Export data to the bureau of maintenance.

Field Survey

Record Data Form

Export Data

Record Data to systems

Adjust Data (if needed)

Figure 1 Maintenance Processing in Department of Rural Roads

2.2 Location Based Service (LBS) LBS is the technology involved in providing information on the location, the coordinates of the mobile device and the spatial data of other users, such as mobile phones, computing devices, tablet or other mobile devices through the network providers [2]. This technology was first used to facilitate the military operation beginning in early 1970, it was known as GPS, or Global Positioning System. This system was developed by the United States, Ministry of Defense. After that the US government allowed the system to be used by private sectors 2

around the world which the system has been significantly developed both products and services by the private sectors. The position coordinates information services gained popularity in a short period of time. However, the services still have limitation for only on specific devices with the GPS receivers. Until 1990, mobile phone has started and providing coverage in all regions around the world, also it has introduced the GPS service by cellular signal resulting in market competition and services increased significantly. One of them is to provide information on the location and spatial information services for the users [3]. The process of LBS technology consists of four factors [4] which are • Positioning: This factor comprises of a positioning system on Earth, including the coordinates from a GPS receiver with in the mobile device and determining the location of mobile towers. • Communication Network: communications network is to exchange data between devices and users or device-to-device as well as provide other services such as maps etc. • Service and Content Provider: is to provide various services for both mobile devices and users, including map information and other information such as weather and traffic reports. In general, the service provider will provide information about the spatial data, such as Google Map, Longdo Map, Navteg and etc. • Mobile Device: is a mobility device that can connect to mobile networks (Mobile Network) for serving the information exchange and locating the network signal. The OS (Operating System) is responsible for processing and managing the operation of mobile devices. Currently, the mobile operating systems that supports this process are Android OS, IOS, Windows Mobile, Symbian OS, and etc.

2.3 Comparison of appropriate operating systems in this development. Department of Rural Roads [1] has been studying the feasibility of any operating system that can be used to develop applications for maintenance management. The details are as follow: 2.3.1 Android 3.2.1 This operating system has been developed by the Google for mobile phone and tablet. This operating system is an Open Source (OS), its components are including Linux Kernel, SQLite, WebKit which allow developers to make any changes, update and create application within the operating system of Android. The operating system Android is the operating system using the same structure with embedded with Linux which uses the Linux kernel (Linux Kernel) as the core of the system. 2.3.2 iOS 3.2.2 iOS operating system, formerly iPhone OS, is an operating system for the Apple smartphone. It has been developed for iPhone and later for iPod Touch and iPads to control the various system in the devices and applications. 2.3.3 Windows Phone This operating system has been developed by Microsoft as an alternative to current manufacturers of communications equipment. In addition, Windows Phone 8 is applying a core of

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PC Windows 8 so some programs and applications can be used on Windows 8 to Windows Phone 8 as well. The comparison of the advantages and limitations of each operating system are shown in Table 1. Table 1 Comparison of advantages and disadvantage between each operating system. Operating System

Advantages

Disadvantages

Android 4.0+

- The system can be modified - Too many developers. according to usage. - Some application only supports - Supports external memory a specific screen size. - Connect to Google services easily

IOS6

- Only can be used with Apple - App Store and iTunes support the Device system and manage to device - File management only can be - Easy to use done through iTunes

Window Phone

- Well Integrated with Microsoft programme - Supports external memory

- A few application - File management only can be done through Zune

2.4 Specification of the Application The Applications for a specific tablet or mobile smartphone can be divided into two types: - Native Applications and - Web Applications, which applications are both running on the same advantages and disadvantages as details below; -

Native Application is an application developed from a set of instructions for application development (SDK: Software Development Kits) of operating systems such as Android operating system use Java and the operating system iOS use Objective-C. Therefore, in general, the Native Application must be installed on the device and tablet.

-

Web Application is an application that runs on a web browser without having to install software to the tablet, but it will be installed on the server to provide services to users. The users only have internet access to be able to run the applications through a web browser. The Web Application using HTML, JavaScript, PHP in the application development.

2.5 Routine maintenance methods Routine maintenance activities refers to maintenance of operating on regular basis so road users have the convenience and safety of driving and preventing the further damages. From rural road maintenance manual published by Department of Rural Roads [5], [6] can be divided into three types:

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2.5.1

Pavement surface routine maintenance.

- Sealing is to repair cracks on the surface. - Skin Patching refers to specific surface maintenance into the deeper layers of the structure. - Deep Patching is to dug up the damages to the road structure and replaced disturbed material with new materials as shown in Figure 2

Figure 2 Deep patching 2.5.2

Management of surrounded road asset

This work is including road cleaning, paint, repair or replace equipment damaged traffic signs, guard rail, etc. The works are shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3 Examples of kilometer post maintenance.

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2.5.3 Clearing grass and maintaining the road-side area. The operation is to cut grass and trees to make the area organized and to prevent accidents due to obscured vision in driving. The work is shown in Figure 4.

Figure 4 Clearing and Tidy up the road-side area. From the above review, Android operating system was chosen to be developed as an application in the form of Native Application because this operating system is an open system and easy to develop as the application. It can be installed without the need to go through iTune or Zune device and it is currently available in many device manufacturers. In addition to use this developed application can be easily downloaded to tablets and will be able to integrate with various hardware devices such as the camera or GPS receiver. The application support the user both online and offline.

3. Storage maintenance data using the application on the tablet. 3.1 Maintenance data that can be stored by the application. The applications was developed for use with the tablet which can record data as follow; 1. Road Asset: is the asset information on the specific road, the information in this section is stored in CRD systems, including traffic signs, guard rail, timber barricade kilometer post and etc. Others data will be also stored in CRD but with the status "pending" for any further amendments and to be allowed administrators to investigate further. 2. Survey routine maintenance activities data: this survey data is including maintenance activities, types and amount of damage, maintenance methods, and include photographs of the surveyed route. 3. Routine maintenance activities data: is a regular data maintenance operations after it has been budgeted. Photos can be attached before, during and after maintenance activities. 4. Evaluation the road network (4S): this is the part of an assessment of four aspects which are Service, Safe, Scenic, and Sure. This includes evaluation of score on each road.

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3.2 Process of storing maintenance data with the application. The process of storing maintenance information via the tablet is divided into five stages as shown in Figure 5, the details of each process are shown below; 3.2.1 Verify data from CRD system: this has to be done because the tablet needs to input road information from the CRD first therefore, CRD must be check if the information are completed and accurate. 3.2.2 Import data into the tablet: this stage is to download all road information into the tablet as well as the map data from the server to the application in the tablet. In this process, the tablet needs to be connected to the internet in order to download all the data. 3.3.3 Survey the maintenance activities: this stage the users will have to survey any possibility maintenance activities that need to be done and save data to a database within the tablet which consists of four parts, as discussed in Section 3.1. The users can operate this stage without connecting to the Internet. 3.3.4 Export data to the server: this stage is to export data that have been organized collection from the survey and to be saved to the database server for further implementation. Both the CRD and PMMS are the systems that operated these output data at this stage therefore the tablet must be connected to the Internet. 3.3.5 Reports: this stage is for any convenient to make a report, if needed, which can be done easily via CRD or PMMS. Check Data in CRD Connect to Internet

Download Data in to Tablet Field Survey

CRD Data

Survey Data

Maintenance Data

Road Evaluation Data

Import Data to Systems

Connect to Internet

RMMS

PMMS

CRD Data Approval

Report Data Figure 5 Process of storing maintenance data with the application 7

The process of storing data using the tablet, as mentioned above, in this study compared with the current process which using paper forms to collect information (See Section 2.1), as the result, it was proved that the tablet can reduce work process down to only three steps, as shown in Figure 6. The recording data process can be imported the data into the CRD and PMMS directly and allow the users to be able to easily export reports through the process of computerization. The comparison of using paper form and tablet application are summarized in Table 2.

Adjust Data (if needed)

Field Survey

Record Data

Export Data

Figure 6 Process of storing maintenance data via tablet Table 2 Comparison of the usage of paper base and computer base. Performance / Details

Paper Form Base

Computer Base

Time / Manpower

- The operation requires time and - Information will load in to the personnel to fill in data from the systems (CRD, PMMS) field. automatically. - Need to fill in all the information - It can be reported to the users into the systems such as CRD and immediately after the survey. PMMS.

Data Condition

- Need well trained manpower to fill in the system due to many specific skills.

- Data will be imported directly to the systems when it connects to the internet.

Budget

- Wasted papers and printing due to many form will be needed in the survey.

- It can be selected the section that is needed to be used.

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3.3 Data Networking and System Architectural This study has developed a data link between tablet computer and applications using links in the Middleware Layer, which serves to oversee the work between the coordinates received from the device to the user's application to support the service, location and other variants and the user can be corresponding to the programs efficiently, also it can reduce any duplication of data management. The link is shown in Figure 7.

Figure 7 The data ling in the Middleware Layer For the architectural of the work on the storage of road maintenance as shown for an example in Figure 8, it can be summarized as below; -

Server is for data transmission and data from the tablet computer. The traffic is carried over a wireless network within the office for exporting and saving the reports.

-

Web services is for data output from the server to the management system, such as CRD and PMMS. Report

PMMS Server

CRD Server

CRD Database

Longdo Map Server

Mirror Server for Tablet

Tablet Computer Wireless Router / Cellular Data Connection

Figure 8 Architectural of the Tablet System 9

The example of the screen shots of the application are shown in Figure 9 – Figure 11

Figure 9 The example for the screen shot showing the location of traffic sign during offline mode

Figure 10 The example of the screen shot showing the process of collecting and surveying data for routine maintenance

Figure 11 The example of screen shot the process of maintenance data with photos

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3.4 Restrictions on operations by the application on a tablet computer. After completing the application development, it was conducted usability testing in the field. In terms of storage components streets, survey data, maintenance data, it was found some restrictions during the operation as follow; 1. The application has been developed with the offline mode which can result in lack of ability to survey the same object on the same road. This is due to duplication of the data when it records to the server. 2. The application can display the map in offline mode which take a long time to download background map into the tablet computer. The duration depends on the distance of each road. 3. Workers need to carefully plan for the survey because the maps of each road need to download in advance. If there is any change, the workers need an internet connection to download new ones. 4. The application is limited to tablet with Android OS version 4.0 or higher and must have a minimum screen resolution of 1280 × 800 pixels. 4. Summary A survey of the road conditions for maintenance and records to the management systems is divided into two ways which are 1. Use survey car and 2. Manpower from provincial to do the survey and condition assessment. The survey forms were used and analyzed by the inspectors, this method requires a lot of time and well-trained personnel. This project has developed an application on a tablet computer to assist in data collection survey and condition assessment. The application of Location Based Service technology for using in this operation of maintenance can be divided into four groups, namely Road Asset, Routine maintenance survey, Routine Maintenance Activities, and Assessment. This can be operated without connecting to the Internet. Data storage using tablet computer can reduce the process of the current procedure as a result, the work can reduce time and resources. It also reduces the complexity and confusion to fill the maintenance form and reduce the use of paper in a report. In addition, data are collected using a tablet computer are sent to CRD and PMMS automatically and on-demand reports can be exported easily and accurately. However, this operation cannot survey the same category on the same rode due to the impact of recording data onto the server which may save overlap. It also tale a long time to download a map to the tablet computer. It has to be planned carefully in advance of any survey route.

5. References [1] Department of Rural Roads, Enhancing efficiency of maintenance work project, Interim Report, 2013. [2] A. Kupper. Location-based Service: Fundamental and Operation. John Wiley & Sons, 2005. [3] A. Brimicombe and Chao Li. Location-based and Geo-information Engineering. John Wiley & Sons, 2009. 11

[4] Taranit Prasertsee, Sanphet Chuenithipaisan, ‘The development of Information technology online supporting Web services and Application’, 18th Civil Engineering Annual Meeting Thailand, 2013. [5] Department of Rural Roads, Routine Maintenance Manual, 2007 [6] Pawarotorn Chaiphet, Visanu Supsompon, ‘Pavement Maintenance Model’, Research and Development Magazine, Year 21 Issue 4, 2010.

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