Date of Award

Spring 2003

Document Type

Thesis - Restricted

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department

Civil and Environmental Engineering

First Advisor

Drakopoulos, Alexander

Second Advisor

Crovetti, James A.

Third Advisor

Devery, Christopher A.

Abstract

The Wisconsin Department of Transportation (WisDOT) has been collecting "photolog" information since the early 1960s. The entire State Truck Highway (STH) system was driven on a two-year cycle; pictures and three-dimensional roadway geometry information (e.g., deviation from the North, cross slope and gradient) was recorded every 1/100th of a mile and the information was saved for use by the Department. This roadway information was obtained through an Inertial Navigation System (INS). It was demonstrated that the collected data could be used to extract reliable horizontal and vertical geometry information (e.g., length of curve, radius of curvature, vertical curve K value). The process for extracting geometry information was automated (an algorithm automatically recognized tangents and curves, gradients and vertical curves and extracted their characteristics). The importance of this automation was that it was possible to create a state-wide roadway geometry database without the need to manually examine as-built plans. This database would be searchable, thus, for example, all geometrically deficient roadway segments could be identified for a state-wide roadway improvement project...

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