VTI has carried out acceptance testing of companies that would like to do road surface monitoring in Finland. This has been done on commission of the Finnish Road Administration. This kind of acceptance testing has been done in Sweden by VTI in cooperation with the Swedish Road Administration several times (four times). With the experience of the tests in Sweden a test method adjusted for the Finnish needs have been composed. The purpose of the method is to accept or reject the participating companies for doing either object or network measurements or both. This is done by checking the validity and repeatability for the object part and the reproducibility for the network part. The tests for the object part involve measurements at test sections including measuring with reference methods as well as repeated measurements on a route. For the reproducibility test, done at the network measuring acceptance, runs with different combinations of vehicles and drivers/operators are carried out. The tests give answers to questions like:
• The technical skill to measure according to the procurement specifications.
• The ability and type of organisation to take care of and process data under given circumstances like this test.
• The ability to deliver data of right quality in time.
To be accepted as a contractor of network level measurements the company also has to be accepted for object measurements.
Four companies did participate in this acceptance test, Destia, Andament, Road Consulting and Ramboll. The companies could choose to take part in either only acceptance for object measurements or both object- and network measurements. To take part in the complete program the company had to use two vehicles in the network part of the test. Only Destia took part of the network test.
Three 1,000 metre sections with a good variation of ruts and IRI were used. The reference measurements of longitudinal profiles (used to calculate IRI, International Roughness Index) were done for the full length of the sections and partly for transverse profiles (used for calculation of rut depth). In addition to the test sections three routes were measured (approximately 80 km each). Two of the routes were used for the network acceptance and one for the object acceptance.
As the reference for rut depth an equipment called VTI-TVP (Cross Profile Scanner) is used. VTI-TVP is a vehicle equipped with a laser sensor scanning the transverse profile. The scanning movement is done while the car is standing still. After a profile is collected the car moves half a metre and the procedure is repeated. 300 metres of the test sections were measured with the VTI-TVP.
The VTI developed equipment called Primal was used to collect the longitudinal profiles. Primal is composed of two main parts, a small remote controlled trolley and a laser beam transmitter. The trolley is measuring the distance between the laser beam and the road profile while moving along the section. To keep the required precision the measured sections can be up to 10 metres. The profiles from the Primal are connected with geodetic measurements (only height) by using a Total station at the end and start points of the Primal profiles.
The following parameters were tested for the acceptance of object measurement:
• Maximum rut depth 1
• Rut depth left 1
• Rut depth right 1
• IRI right 1
• Height of ridge 1
• IRI4 right
• Crossfall regression
• Curvature
• Gradient
• Megatexture right
• Macrotexture right
1) The parameter is tested against reference measurements from test sections as well as repeatability from repeated runs on one route.
The following parameters were tested for the acceptance of network measurement:
• Maximum rut depth
• Rut depth left
• Rut depth right
• IRI right
• Height of ridge
• IRI4 right
• Crossfall regression
• Curvature
• Gradient
• Megatexture right
• Macrotexture right.
Results
One of the purposes with this test was to decide which of the participating companies had the sufficient quality within the organisation to accomplish object measurements in Finland. The second purpose was to decide whether the company participating in the network test had the sufficient quality within the organisation to accomplish network measurements of the governmental roads in Finland.
The results from the tests were the acceptance of Destia and Ramboll (after a renewed test during the spring of 2008 Andament is also accepted) as an organisation that is allowed to make object measurements in Finland. Destia that also participated in the network part of the test was accepted for that purpose.
The similarity algorithm calculates how much two contents in the system are similar to one another. So far, similarity is calculated based on similarity of the project type, area of interest and user type. Generally, if two contents have more parameters in common they are more similar to each another. More information.
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