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Reduced budgets. Deteriorating infrastructure. Now more than ever, in the wake of the COVID-19 economic impact, making the most of your taxpayer resources is critical to the health of your road networks. Learn to use free web-based tools and calculators that were designed especially for road managers and public works officials to assist in making data-driven decisions for annual pavement maintenance and asset planning. RoadResource.org, the free and unbiased industry tool from PPRA, features resources for public works officials, including asset management calculators for preserving and maintaining roads, as well as downloadable communication tools that can be leveraged with taxpayers and elected officials. Join the builders of this resource as they walk through how-to’s such as optimizing life cycle cost, evaluating remaining service life, and prioritizing road projects through cost-benefit value; all in service to making the best use of taxpayer dollars. After nearly six years of research, planning and development among public works officials, experts in the pavement industry, and researchers in the field, these strategists have identified the important key traits, concepts, and approaches of the most successful road managers in North America, and leveraged them into these usable learning tools. At a time when infrastructure budgets are reduced, gas and sales tax revenues are down, yet costs and demands around pavement maintenance continue to climb– every road manager owes it to their taxpayers to push each dollar as far as it will go. These free tools can get you (and your decision-makers) where you need to be.
Read MoreThe City of Milan, Italy, will present an overview of their recently deployed online Business Process Management system. The system leverages geospatial intelligence to improve coordination of right-of-way activities, streamlines and improves the permitting process for activities that impact the right-of-way, and improves coordination with internal and external stakeholders. The City of Milan is the economic capital of Italy. It is facing many city and district rehabilitations, and a business development that changed the city shape and perception after Expo 2015. Milan has 1.5 million residents and sees 5 million commuters daily. With a constantly growing economy, the city must improve its internal procedures to shorten permit delivery, using technology for a better control of the municipal area and to maintain a high urban décor. The city will discuss the challenges faced in moving from their historical management practices to a more industrialized process. The city will also highlight the realized benefits of implementing standardized procedures and processes: reduced review/approval times; exposed opportunities to improve coordination internally and externally (Dig Once); reduced impacts due to roadway closures; changing roles of permit coordinators; workflow improvements; and future developments. The goal of Milan’s Geospatial Intelligence Automation is industrializing procedures to speed up any review process. Connected geographic information enables improved communication through a one stop internal and external portal. Automation decreased processing time and human labor, especially for data entry, communication and controls. The shift to more employees working from home or remote locations has highlighted the necessity of having online systems for managing permit applications and right-of-way activities. Online systems with streamlined and well thought out workflows are critical to for city employees and applicants.
Read MoreAdvancements in telecom service can make city governments more efficient in responding to their citizens’ needs and enrich the lives of its residents. But the expansion of fiber services can also impact your city’s utility poles in ways you did not realize. Learn how to effectively work with telecom partners while protecting your community’s utilities and landowner rights. Discussion includes considerations for city-owned utility poles versus leased and the critical importance of updating easement documentation to include fiber.
Read MorePipelines that carry flows under pressure represent a special set of challenges for water and sewer rehabilitation. Historically, the most common renewal technology employed has been to replace the pipeline using open cut construction. Part of the reason for that choice has been a lack of trenchless rehabilitation technologies appropriate for pressurized pipelines. A lack of investment in the aging pressure pipe infrastructure, coupled with growing congestion both above and below ground, has accelerated development in the trenchless rehabilitation industry. With an ever-increasing number of proven trenchless rehabilitation technologies, how does a utility owner or engineer determine the appropriate technology to specify? This presentation briefly reviews many of the common and emerging trenchless technologies for pressurized pipeline rehabilitation and provides a basic framework that can be utilized to evaluate and select an appropriate solution. Presenters will review the concept of structural classification of pressure pipe linings as defined in AWWA publications, which is a critical component to selecting an appropriate trenchless technology. They’ll also review several case studies that demonstrate how the basic framework was followed to select a trenchless technology solution.
Read MoreLeadership is about moving people to action on a mission. At its heart, leadership is about influence. Influence is the indirect or intangible way that we move others. The problem is that how leaders create influence has permanently changed. It used to be that we could move our colleagues because of what we were. Our role in the organization, our job title, our experience, and our education among other accomplishments provided more than enough influence. It was credentials first and the person behind the credentials second. Now, due to the pandemic, due to technological change, due to wider social pressures, we are seeing the rapid acceleration of a new trend. Effective leadership is less about what we are and more about who we are. The credentials still matter, but the person behind the credentials matters more than ever. The New Leader Way focuses on the core human skills that create the most compelling leadership influence in the modern workplace. The pandemic, technology, and social pressures will continue to radically reshape our communities and our organizations. It’s time for a new leadership philosophy. This is The New Leader Way.
Read MoreSplashpads have become a valuable city amenity across the country, but many facilities and/or grounds managers are unsure what is needed to acquire, plan, and manage a splashpad. Our panel…
Read MoreAnalyzing an Ingham County, Michigan real-world winter weather event from the perspective of meteorology, emergency management, and a county road department. This session will consider ways of communicating information to and from the county agencies, how emergency managers are involved in a major winter event, and what needs the road department has for information and how the partnership in Ingham County fills those requirements. The expectation is for me to speak on the EM/meteorology role (I am a meteorologist and emergency manager) and someone from our county road department to speak on our interaction, most likely in 20-25 minutes for each of us.
Read MoreThe Indiana Department of Transportation (INDOT) has a fleet of over 1,000 winter operations trucks and spends up to $60M annually on snow removal and de-icing as part of their winter operation maintenance activities. Materials for treating, contribute a significant part of that budget and the efficient application of these materials with automated solutions for managing driver workload can significantly cut down operating costs and staff turnover. This demonstration shows how INDOT and Purdue University developed an innovative calibration box and smart brine tanker to improve winter operation procedures, reduce costs and make roads safer in the winter. A critical aspect of an effective and efficient application of salt is a properly calibrated spreader system. Preliminary investigation found that trucks were offloading excess salt (around 50% more) before calibration. In the past, spreaders were often calibrated using scales to measure the weight of material off-loaded during a measured time interval. Although this method is accurate, it can be quite time consuming if scales are not on site or if material is collected on a tarp and weighed. INDOT and Purdue University developed a volumetric based calibration procedure. A bottomless calibration box was constructed out of aluminum sign backing that holds a known volume (and weight). The time-consuming aspect of calibration is the offload calibration due to determining the weight of the truck before and after offload and inputting the offloaded amount into the controller. This process can take upwards of 2 hours, but the calibration box eliminates the need for weighing the truck, allowing agencies to calibrate a truck 10 minutes or less. A set of calibration tables can also be used to allow for variance in salt moisture content and densities. Results from repeated tests showed that calibrating improved the offloading inaccuracies by 30%, which could yield a significant reduction in costs and usage.
Read MoreThe Palisade Plunge Trail project is a unique, world-class mountain biking trail route that connects the top of the Grand Mesa (10,780’ elevation) to the valley floor in the Town of Palisade (4,728’ elevation). At approximately 34 miles long and with over 6,000’ of vertical relief, The Plunge is one of a handful of similar singletrack trail routes worldwide. For almost half of its length, The Plunge traverses through areas not previously accessible to the public due to lack of trails, inaccessible terrain, watershed restrictions, and private leaseholder fencing. The Palisade Plunge is a collaborative effort between Mesa County, BLM, USFS, CPW, Town of Palisade, City of Grand Junction, Colorado Plateau Mountain Bike Trail Association (COPMOBA) and other numerous other minor stakeholders. Mesa County was elected by the stakeholders to be the primary stakeholder to handle all the design and construction for the project. The estimated annual economic impact from the Palisade Plunge Trail to the Mesa County communities is $5 million annually. All partners involved with this project have been proactively seeking to make this a demonstration project for how to proceed with both persistence and compromise to ultimately bring the vast majority of the people and organizations on-board to complete a vision of the project that begun ten years ago. Come journey with presenters as they traverse this winding, wild ride and cover some of the numerous lessons learned during the bidding and construction of this unique project.
Read MoreAs the waste stream continues to evolve, solid waste managers across the U.S. are examining different metrics to more accurately measure recycling program performance and identify areas for improvement. One metric that continues to gain appeal is the recycling capture rate, which measures the percentage of eligible recyclables recovered through the recycling program. Capture rate studies can be coupled with educational intervention to do pre- and post-program measurement. This presentation touches on study results including a 2019 study for the Solid Waste Authority of Central Ohio (SWACO), an authority serving the 1.3 million residents within the 40+ jurisdictions in Franklin County, including the City of Columbus. Of particular interest, this study is the first known to the presenters to perform a side-by-side comparison of two different methods to measure capture rates. A trending educational intervention method is to conduct multiple passbys of recycling setouts and assessing the cleanliness of the material and leaving specific feedback for the resident. This cart (or bin) monitoring approach is proving beneficial in swinging route loads that were previously being rejected to be accepted. This saves the municipality costs and keeps materials in the correct direction for processing rather than rejected and sent to landfills. Case studies and approaches will be discussed and audience participation encouraged to share their experiences and current challenges.
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