Doctor of Philosophy, University of Akron, 2017, Civil Engineering

In an effort to provide safe roadways for the traveling public, transportation agencies are challenged with combating snow and ice events throughout certain regions of the country. In order to combat these events, winter maintenance fleets are designed to mechanically and chemically remove the snow and ice from the roadways. These snow and ice removal practices require labor, equipment, and materials; therefore, snow and ice removal requires much of the transportation maintenance budget. This dissertation examines how to use winter maintenance operational data in various methods in order to improve, optimize, or justify winter maintenance operations. This dissertation will review three areas within the winter maintenance practices that may benefit from data analytics. The first analysis conducted reviewed the mechanical snow removal equipment, specifically the plow blades. These plow blades makes contact with the roadway and eventually will wear down and need to be replaced. There are several types of blades on the market which have been shown to wear at a lower rate in comparison to the current standard flame harden steel blades. Using these blade data and county data (truck number, lane-miles treated, and weather received), the probability of failure for each blade type at different quantities used per year (1 to 10 blades) for each county may be modeled. Overall these findings present that the specialty blades have a much lower probability of failure due to the low wear rate on each of them. Chemically removing snow and ice from roadways to keep the traveling public safe is highly expensive for transportation agencies. Liquid deicers have been shown to assist in chemical removal process. One common liquid deicer utilized is brine because it is made with NaCl and water in-house at a low cost. Using in-field data and lab data these chemical removal practices may be determined. These results may highly impact winter maintenance operations. The field data (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: William Schneider PhD (Advisor); Christopher Miller PhD (Committee Member); Qindan Huang PhD (Committee Member); Stephen Duirk PhD (Committee Member); Shivakumar Sastry PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Civil Engineering; Transportation

Master of Science in Engineering, University of Akron, 2017, Civil Engineering

The Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT) uses approximately 700,000 tons of salt per year to keep their roads safe of icy conditions during the winter. Recently, ODOT has been experiencing extreme salt pricing in response to their county-by-county bid process. As a result, ODOT's annual cost for snow and ice removal reached approximately $86 million from its maintenance budget. The majority of expenses are accumulated by the procurement of rock salt. In order to identify recommendations for ODOT processes, a matrix of best and current practices was developed at the national, state, and city-level pertaining to winter maintenance. A thorough evaluation of variables which affect salt pricing was conducted. The transportation of salt as well as the delivery times were analyzed. It was concluded that winter salt orders, although modeled over $6.00 less expensive than summer, run a much higher risk of being delivered late. Therefore, a ten-step storage facility evaluation process was created to determine the vulnerability of a storage facility, the estimated cost to increase the capacity, and whether the facility may act as a regional storage location. This process gives ODOT the necessary tools to evaluate their storage facilities on a case-by-case basis due to the diverse environments such as weather found throughout the state of Ohio.

Committee: William Schneider IV Ph.D., P.E. (Advisor); Teresa Cutright Ph.D. (Committee Member); Qindan Huang Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Civil Engineering

Master of Science in Engineering, University of Akron, 2017, Engineering

For winter maintenance purposes, the Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT) deploys a fleet of approximately 1,600 snow plow trucks that maintain 43,000 lane miles of roadway. These trucks are based out of 200 garages, yards, and outposts that also house 650,000 tons of salt (ODOT, 2011). The deployment of such a large number of trucks over a vast maintenance area creates an operational problem in determining the optimal maintenance routes and fleet size. Traditionally, ODOT has used county borders as maintenance boundaries for ODOT garages. However, by removing these borders and optimizing the snow plow routes, ODOT may benefit from a significant time and cost savings. The results of this project provides ODOT with a tool to determine the minimum number of trucks needed to maintain the necessary roadways within Districts 1, 2, and 10. In addition, the project provides ODOT a tool to assign assets to specific facilities and the most optimal routes for each truck in the district. This research has resulted in reducing the fleets within Districts 1, 2, and 10 by 29 trucks while maintaining the same level of service currently observed. In addition to the reduced fleets, the route optimization decreasing the time to treat each road in the three districts by 17 hours for one iteration.

Committee: William Schneider IV (Advisor); Christopher Miller (Committee Member); Stephen Duirk (Committee Member) Subjects: Civil Engineering

Master of Science in Engineering, University of Akron, 2014, Civil Engineering

To maximize efficiency while minimizing costs within ODOT's winter maintenance budget, ODOT is evaluating new methods of snow and ice removal. One method is the use of Viking-Cives TowPlow. The TowPlow is pulled behind a tandem axle truck and has the ability to treat an additional lane. A thorough evaluation of the TowPlow is conducted to determine the feasibility for implementation into an ODOT garage, including: level of service (LOS), equipment usage in different types of weather, and impacts on the public. To successfully evaluate the TowPlow, three main areas of data are collected from three counties using the TowPlow in the 2013-2014 winter season: weather, utilization, and speed data. There is an annualized cost savings when compared to the equivalent standard trucks needed to match the TowPlow's ability.

Committee: William Schneider IV Dr. (Advisor); Teresa Cutright Dr. (Committee Member); Stephen Duirk Dr. (Committee Member) Subjects: Civil Engineering; Transportation

Master of Science in Engineering, University of Akron, 2014, Civil Engineering

Polluted stormwater runoff including both organic and inorganic components from traveled roads has been extensively reported. There is significantly less information regarding pollutants that aggregate on vehicles that are then introduced into sewer systems or on-site treatment systems when the vehicle is washed. Depending on the nature and concentration of the pollutants, additional treatment or other environmental management options may be required. This study reports more than 10,400 measurements (17 metal and 10-non-metal parameters) obtained from 24 Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT) maintenance facilities during the 2012-2013 winter season after full wash events. Measurements were compared to local disposal guidance and potential brine reuse limitations. Contaminants by sample percent found to exceed disposal guidelines were Cu (4%), Zn (20%), oil and grease (20%), and total suspended solids (65%), whereas Cu (59%), Zn (66%), Fe (19%), Pb (4%), and oil and grease (74%) exceeded reuse limits. For 11 of the 24 garages, the median Cu concentration at the facilities was at least double the reuse limit. Zinc was also high, with 10 of the 24 garages double the reuse limit. Elevated oil and grease and TSS concentrations were likely due to undersized oil-water separators and washing of all of the trucks at once. Metal phase analysis (particulate vs. dissolved) and chemical equilibrium modeling results show zinc is predominantly in the dissolved phase (>90%) at concentrations that alone will exceed reuse limits, significantly impacted by pH, and elevated in the presence of high chloride concentrations measured in the wash water. These results suggest that in order to reuse the wash water as brine and in some instances to meet disposal guidance, the wash water would need to undergo treatment and the treatment option must address dissolved zinc.

Committee: Christopher Miller Dr. (Advisor); William Schneider Dr. (Committee Member); Stephen Duirk Dr. (Committee Member) Subjects: Civil Engineering; Engineering; Environmental Engineering; Transportation; Water Resource Management

Master of Science in Engineering, University of Akron, 2014, Civil Engineering

The trucks performing snow and ice removal for the Ohio Department of Transportation are frequently washed to prevent corrosion associated with the salt the trucks spread on the roadways. Strategies for the management of wash water generated during routine washing of salt trucks have been previously studied and collecting and hauling off-site for disposal or connecting to a sanitary sewer system have generally been determined to be the most feasible options. The purpose of this research is to compare the annualized cost of both strategies to determine the most cost effective option by using a probabilistic based approach. The cost equation input variables were based on two datasets; statewide data for all ODOT maintenance facilities and data for ODOT maintenance facilities without access to the sanitary sewer, as well as labor rate, cost of fuel, and discount rate. The variables were defined by probability distribution and cost calculations were performed using Monte Carlo Simulation. The calculations determined that the annualized cost of the management strategies were most sensitive to the number of trucks, number of winter events, roundtrip hauling distance, capital cost of the sanitary sewer and discount rate. The change in the probability that the collection and off-site hauling of wash water for disposal is the most cost effective strategy was less than 30% when the capital cost of the sanitary sewer connection was $300,000 or greater. The probabilities were much more sensitive to the changes in the key input variables when the sanitary sewer capital cost was set to $100,000.The overall probability based on all input distributions was calculated based on the capital cost of the sanitary sewer. For all facilities, the collection and off-site disposal strategy has a 90% or greater probability to be the most cost effective strategy when the capital cost exceeds $280,000; however, the capital cost decreases to $172,000 for the same probabilities when considering o (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Christopher Miller Dr. (Advisor); William Schneider IV Dr. (Committee Member); Stephen Duirk Dr. (Committee Member) Subjects: Civil Engineering

Master of Science, University of Akron, 2013, Civil Engineering

As part of routine winter maintenance activities, salt trucks are washed frequently at the Ohio Department of Transportation's (ODOT) 88 county and 136 outpost garages during the winter months. In locations where sanitary sewer is available, truck wash water is treated with an oil/water separator and discharged directly to the sanitary sewer system. However, at facilities that do not have access to sanitary sewer, truck wash water must be collected and managed, often at a significant cost. The current ODOT policy for truck wash water management, tying these facilities into the sanitary sewer system, has a high capital cost, and is not always possible. The purpose of this research was to identify alternative strategies for managing wash water generated during routine washing of salt trucks at ODOT maintenance facilities lacking access to sanitary sewer, assess their costs, and compare the cost of alternative management strategies with the cost of tying into the sanitary sewer system. Six viable wash water management strategies were identified and the annualized costs of each option were calculated for individual maintenance facilities. The cost analysis indicated that site specific conditions, including the volume of wash water generated, the distance to the potential disposal locations, and the capital cost of tying into the sanitary sewer, directly impact the cost effectiveness of alternative management strategies. Under the conditions of the cost analysis, pursuing off-site disposal, rather than tying into the sanitary sewer, could yield an annual cost savings of approximately $1.1 million across ODOT's 12 county and 66 outpost garages lacking access to sanitary sewer. The analysis also showed that, for a typical county garage with 12 trucks and 30 winter events, when the capital cost of tying into the sanitary sewer is greater than $300,000, four of the five management alternatives identified are more cost effective than tying into the sanitary sewer (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Christopher Miller Dr. (Advisor); William Schneider Iv Dr. (Committee Member); Stephen Duirk Dr. (Committee Member) Subjects: Engineering; Environmental Engineering; Environmental Management; Environmental Science; Transportation Planning