A spatiotemporal approach to managing utility work schedules

As more and more utility installation and/or maintenance activities are located in highly congested urban roadways, frequent pavement utility cuts in such areas may cause more traffic disruption as well as deteriorate pavement life and quality. Utility owners normally need to obtain permits from public road authorities before commencing utility activities; however, public road authorities in Taiwan currently just issue permits without trying to coordinate and communicate with utility owners involved to schedule their utility-related activities in a more consecutive way. An information model based on the spatiotemporal objects database technique was proposed to help public road authorities identify the utility activities that might be combined together to avoid unnecessary pavement utility cuts. In the proposed model, constraints pertaining to pavement moratorium, utility clearance distance and traffic conditions were considered. The software architecture is discussed, followed by research conclusions.