Pavement Management with Fugro's Specialized Technology

The Ministry of Transportation of Ontario (MTO) uses Fugro’s Automatic Road Analyzers (ARAN 7000 and ARAN 9000) to collect critical highway infrastructure data. MTO is committed to extending the lifespan of its road network and infrastructure by using ARAN data to assess the health of Ontario’s highway network. Fugro’s ARAN systems have enhanced the quality, quantity and reliability of acquired data enabling MTO to track, monitor and manage pavement and roadside assets in ways that were not feasible in the past.

MTO uses both the ARAN 7000 and ARAN 9000 platforms as complementary parts of their fleet of asset management tools. The ARAN 7000 is a fully portable road profiling solution for roughness, smoothness, rutting and texture measurement while the ARAN 9000 is a fully integrated data collection system equipped with lasers, cameras and accelerometers to measure a road’s profile and to provide an inventory of road assets. The ARANs enable the Ministry to obtain continuous and improved infrastructure data on highways and roadways, where conducting a manual survey is time consuming and unsafe for staff. As technology has evolved, MTO’s ability to measure conditions accurately has increased and currently it is updating existing paving contracts to include a requirement for automated data collection. Pavement smoothness is of high importance for MTO and the travelling public. Each time a contractor completes a construction, resurfacing, or rehabilitation project, they are required to use an inertial profiler to measure the surface quality using the International Roughness Index (IRI).

Michael Slack, Fugro’s Customer Support Supervisor stated, "The ARAN to iVision process flow allows MTO to quickly and seamlessly share valuable information to each of its regions. This makes it easy for the regional managers to make use of the collected data, without having to replicate the work manually in the field."

Fugro has delivered vehicle-based automated data collection systems to numerous transportation agencies in Canada and the USA including Arkansas, Connecticut, Maryland, Missouri and South Dakota, as well as to the USA national Strategic Highway Research Program (SHRP2), and overseas authorities and institutions.

Image: MTO is extending Ontario’s road life using Fugro’s Automatic Road Analyzers (ARAN 9000 and ARAN 7000)