To assure IRIS would meet the needs of the largest number of counties,AOC used teams of county representatives to develop the system. Despite difficulties and formidable challenges with standardization, a majority of Oregon's county public works departments now use one or more IRIS modules.
APPROACH
Under the direction of AOC, a team of county representatives established the parameters for IRIS and the process for developing it. Engineers reviewed several off-the-shelf programs and some in use by other states. Most systems either lacked flexibility for ongoing, cost-effective modification or suffered from Y2K problems. As a result, the team chose to develop a customized system.
In 1992, a standards team developed specifications for the first IRIS module, the Road Inventory System -- a standardized method of tracking and classifying road assets and features (see sidebar). At the same time, a design team worked on the user interface for the system. Specifications for each of the other modules -- cost accounting, maintenance management, pavement management and a GIS viewer -- were subsequently developed by different teams.
The Pavement Management System (PMS) is a network-level manager used to identify pavement condition. It is also used to project the future condition of the network -- with and without maintenance. PMS enables public works departments to develop budgets and track costs for new and existing sections of their networks. Originally developed by the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) in Oakland, Calif., the program was adapted for IRIS through a joint project with MTC.
ACCOMMODATING COUNTY NEEDS
When the IRIS project began, some counties had neither computers nor the budgets to buy them. Since hardware and software were part of the standardization process, a committee reviewed available systems on the state contract and selected a computer. AOC then mass purchased it for the counties under a cooperative agreement with the Oregon Department of Transportation. Working with the representatives, the association also standardized on the software the counties would purchase and set up a training program. For public works departments with no computers, this meant starting with the basics. Ehrlich said it was not unusual for rural counties to have few technical resources, and that some counties may still be without computers. "These are mainly rural areas with tight budgets and minimal technical resources," he said.
Since 1993, AOC has spearheaded numerous system modifications in response to changing county needs and advances in information systems technology. IRIS is now a Windows-based system with five modules; the latest, a GIS viewer, is currently being beta tested by several counties.
When fully integrated with other IRIS modules, the GIS viewer will enable users to perform limited GIS functions, which include creating maps on the fly, overlaying multiple layers onto a base map, mixing and matching data from different modules to create thematic maps, establishing buffers, using filters, doing simple analysis, and rating the condition of selected road features -- such as pavements, ramps, culverts and signs -- for maintenance or replacement. Although the viewer has many GIS functions, it does not have full GIS capability. Maps, for instance, are edited from the database rather than from the screen. For more complex applications by engineering, planning or other departments, users can load IRIS data (maintained in shape files) directly into any commercial GIS system.
Categories for the Road Inventory System
Accidents Adjacent Developments
Average Daily Traffic Approaches
Bike Facilities Bridge Inventory
Boundaries Curbs
Catch Basins Cul-de-sac/Turnouts
Culverts Ditches
Fences/Gates Guardrails/Barriers
Illumination Intersections
Jurisdictions Lanes
Map Locators Mediums
Maintenance Routes Manhole/Vaults
Monumentations Pavement Markings
Railroad Crossings Reference Points
Right-of-Ways Road Classifications
Road Use Constraints Sign Inventory/ Activity/History
Shoulders Surface Types
Signals Speed Zones
Underground Utility Crossings Unique Routes
Walks Wheelchair Ramps
To access the full capabilities of the viewer, users need a base map and a centerline file for georeferencing. Census TIGER (Topographically Integrated Geographic Encoding and Referencing) files -- although not terribly precise at 1 to 100,000 -- are one source of base maps. Another source is orthophotos, which have far greater accuracy. Centerline files are usually developed from orthophotos or GPS surveys, but for rural counties with limited budgets, mapping may be a low priority. AOC Programmer Analyst Patrick Flaherty said the association is working on ways to help small counties acquire base maps from TIGER files, which would get them started with a base map. As for centerlines, Flaherty said, "If we plan on having the smaller counties use this system, we will have to do a lot of the work for the ones that don't have these files."
When AOC conducts a statewide analysis in response to federal or state funding requirements, each county is requested to send in updates on their road inventory and projected budgets for road assets management. Counties with Internet access respond via e-mail attachment; others use a fax or send data on a disk; a few still use paper and regular mail. Ehrlich said some rural areas are barely up to having a fax. "One county I work with has only one fax machine and that's at the county courthouse," he said. When programmers complete AOC's Web page and FTP site, counties with Internet access will be able to download and upload data directly.
INSTITUTIONAL ISSUES
In addition to the lack of technical facilities in some counties, difficulties in the early phase of the project centered around efforts to standardize inventory categories for the road information system. Rural counties were opposed to the inclusion of road assets and features not in their areas, such as signals and curb ramps. Urban counties, on the other hand, particularly those with large metropolitan areas, wanted these categories in the inventory. Another early issue was the impression that AOC was going to require counties to adopt all the IRIS provisions. "There were some hot meetings," Ehrlich recalled. "At times, people wanted to throw other people out of the room, but we just talked the differences all out. We emphasized that nothing in the IRIS provisions was a mandate; counties could pick and choose categories and features they wanted to have in the road inventory. As long as the representatives knew the process was going to be flexible, there weren't many disagreements."
An early move by the association was to refrain from presenting ideas, because suggestions were often interpreted as attempts to call the shots. Instead, AOC and representatives looked at criteria other agencies had established for evaluating different road assets and features. "We got a lot of ideas from looking at the many different programs that were already out there," Ehrlich said. "The process forced us to ask what we wanted in a system and how we would evaluate it."
GROWING ACCEPTANCE
Although some issues are still hanging, 24 of Oregon's 36 counties are now using one or more IRIS modules. According to Ehrlich, acceptance of the system is largely due to the flexibility in the negotiations and a team approach to the development. As the program continues to respond to changing county needs, AOC hopes other counties will eventually want to use the system.
Bill McGarigle is a writer specializing in communication & information technology. E-mail:
March Table of Contents
