Road Manager

Management Subsystem for

Road and Linear Civil
Works Projects

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c/Playa de Lagoa,1 Boadilla del Monte 28660 Madrid

916322168 / 605876613 www.acm-sl.com

Basic ideas
To enable the Operational Management Systems to
link with an actual model of the road, based on its
cartographic representation.
To ease the use by non highly qualified personnel.
Relying on a data model specialized for Lineal Civil
Works.
To cope with the problem of Versioning of maps and
milestones.

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Road model (1)

The model used in RoadManager for the road is
oriented to ease the identification of any point
based on the linear reference additionally to the
x,y positioning.
The cartographic model is designed to allow the
management of versioning of both the
cartographic model itself, and, independently, of
the milestone referencing system. So it is possible
to make the map at a given date.
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Road model (2)

Impact of this model on different contexts:
Legal (i.e. finding the situation of accidents in a given
road at a given date presented on the actual map of
that date)
Works Management (i,e. situate the extend of a given
project or work done on the road presented on the
actual map of that date)
Technical (i.e. maintaining a data base with the
evolution of the technical parameter of the road
(curvature, camber, etc) at each point of the road.
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Technical characteristics (1)

RoadManager is based on a standard Geographical
Information System (GIS) on which the following
extensions are provided:
Linear referencing of each element of the road
(according to actual milestones).
Versioning Management of the road plot and
cartographic base.
Independent Versioning Management of the pave and
the linear references (milestones).
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Technical characteristics (2)

The underlying GIS allows for the presentation of
the graphic data according layers, specific
symbology, navigation through the map (zooming,
panning, etc), plotting, integration with Office
platforms, etc.
All data, even cartographic data and project are
kept on standard data bases, minimizing the cost
of ownership typically associated to these kind of
applications.
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Some details about the specific model used in the former

Project
Each side of the road has an associated reference line
(ideally that line should be the center of the road axis).
Each point of each element is kept with x, y and z
coordinates, and it is associated to one of the sides.
Any point in the map (inside the pavement or outside) can
be referenced using the exact situation of milestones,
projecting it on to the reference line. Resolution of the
computation are sub-millimetric.
We developed a number of filtering programs to detect and
correct (when possible) errors on the incoming data (both for
the road itself and for the cartographic data).
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Example: Project done with data from Highway A92

Cordoba- Sevilla
The next slides present the result of the analysis done on a
part of that highway with the following characteristics:
Total length :117 kms
Average distance between consecutive points on the
reference line : 22 m.

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 In the next slide red plots are referred to left

hand side of the Highway. Blue plots are
referred to the right side.
The table at the bottom shows additional
data from the analysis (x, y, z coordinates,
actual curvature radius, distance to origin,
etc).

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Inverse of curvature radius at

each point

Distance of the point at

hand from the start of the
Highway

Data (coordinates, actual

radius, road side, etc)

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 These plots allow for a visual track of the quality of the

design and/or construction of the Project.
Flat regions correspond to straight sections
The higher the curvature the lesser the actual turning radius
less security and comfort
The density of hills (or needles) in this plot indicate the actual
density of curves in the road.
The higher the hills the bigger the danger to travel through the
road.
The ideal road (straight line) with be also represented by an
straight line

Next slide is just a zoom over the former slide

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Zoom

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 Making a bigger zoom RoadManager makes visible

difficult to find details of the as-built Project. In the next
slide it is easy to see two such cases:
A normal curve, with radius around 500m. Represented by a
plateau in the plot, surrounded by transitional curves (ideally
clotoides).
A pure transitional clotoide zone used to transition between two
straight zones.

Other (important) application of RoadManager is a tool for

detecting very difficult to track cartographic errors, such
as the needles. Those needles can not be real and come
from very tiny error in the computation of the x, y
coordinates of those specific points.

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Curve in the road of

radius ~500 m

Transition Zone in the road

implemented with a clotoide

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Integration with other Applications

The aim of RoadManager is to solve the difficult problem
of making and maintaining a useful and practical model for
the as-built Projects of Linear Civil Works. As such it
provides all necessary hooks to be integrated on with
other software Applications, such as those for Project
Planning, Road Maintenance Management, etc.
RoadManager is based on standards: for data base
managers, for the underlying GIS system, for integration
with MS Office.
A key concept in the design of RoadManager is that it does
not have the intention to become the center of the
system, but rather to offer other systems some difficult to
implement models and functionalities.

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