Bismarck-Mandan MPO launches project to better understand road maintenance needs
The Bismarck-Mandan transportation organization recently launched a project aimed at helping city engineers better assess roadway conditions in the region. The data collected could help guide decision-making for road maintenance and save taxpayer money for area cities.
The Metropolitan Planning Organization last month began its pavement condition collection and analysis project, which aims to survey "major and minor thoroughfare roadways." The project is a routine inspection that the MPO conducts every four to five years, with the last survey being done in 2020.
This is the fifth time the MPO has undertaken such a project since its inception, according to MPO Executive Director Rachel Lukaszewski.
"It is one of (MPO's) tenets that we want to be able to maintain the strength and the integrity of the road system," she said. "This project allows us to know that data and know which parts of the road network might need attention."
The $100,000 project is being carried out by Quality Engineering Solutions, a national firm based in Reno, Nevada, that specializes in asset management and mobile data collection for local and state governments. The majority of the project funding - 80% - comes from the MPO's federal funding, while the remaining costs are shared among the MPO's five local jurisdictions: the cities of Bismarck, Mandan, and Lincoln, as well as Burleigh and Morton counties.
The project is surveying all of the MPO's functional classified roadways, which include arterial and collector roadways within urban areas. Additionally, the city of Bismarck for the second time has joined the project to separately survey all of its local roads at a cost of $130,000 - budgeted out of the city's general fund. The city of Bismarck has over 1,600 lane miles of concrete and asphalt roadway, the city's website says.
Arterial roads are large main roads that facilitate travel between destinations within a city. Local roads are low-traffic streets primarily used to access property. Collectors are roadways that connect local roads to arterials.
The roadways are being surveyed to detect for cracks and to assess for surface roughness, which help determine the longevity of the roadway. The overall idea, Lukaszewski said, is to use a proactive approach to be able to save taxpayer money and minimize disruptions by doing regular maintenance rather than extensive reconstruction projects. This data typically enables engineers to schedule roadway work years in advance.
"The city engineers use that information to select which roadways might need a maintenance project, like an overlay, a chip seal - or (if the road) might be a contender for eventual reconstruction if the maintenance options are not available to that road," Lukaszewski said.
The data collection is subcontracted out to Texas-based Roadway Asset Services, which uses a fleet of Roadway Asset Collection vehicles, which are large work vans outfitted with laser imaging sensors that can detect roadway abnormalities, such as cracks and ruts, and 360-degree camera systems to collect images of the pavement and surrounding right-of-way.
The imagery is used to develop a "Pavement Condition Index" for each roadway. The index uses a scale of zero to 100, with "various distress/severity combinations" resulting in points deducted from the starting value of 100, according to the Federal Highway Administration .
The vans are typically staffed by two operators who take turns driving and operating the equipment, which takes up a significant portion of the rear of the vans. Each vehicle usually operates at posted speed limits and with the flow of traffic, but must stay under 50 mph on faster roads for accurate data collection. For the operators, the work days are usually quite long.
"(We operate) from sunup to sundown, because we can only scan during the daytime," RAS Operator Walter Cubero said. "We could scan at nighttime, but we wouldn't have any good imagery. It looks really grainy."
The trucks are similar to a system used by the North Dakota Department of Transportation to collect data on state highways. Lukaszewski said these resources aren't necessarily available for the MPO to use, which is why the organization funnels its federal dollars into a contracted project, selected through a competitive bidding process.
The MPO typically publishes a request for proposal, conducts interviews and finally chooses a contract with approval of its policy board. The MPO also seeks approval form NDDOT to ensure that federal money is being used "in the best way possible," Lukaszewski said.
The MPO portion of the project is expected to be complete by the end of the year. The city of Bismarck portion of the project will take longer, expected to wrap up sometime in early 2025.
Reach Zachary Weiand at 701-250-8264 or .
