Developing a Proactive Fuzzy- Logic Model for Optimizing Winter Road Maintenance Measure in Cold Urban Areas Using Real-Time Data

The survey asked highway construction experts, particularly those who have been involved in winter road maintenance activities from the Department of Transportation, about the effectiveness of the parameters that drive the criticality of a particular Rd segment to winter road maintenance. We reached out to 202 respondents of which 37 completed the survey. The IRB approval for conducting the survey can be seen in the index of this report. The majority of the respondents are based in the State of Washington. Table 4.11 shows the distribution of the survey respondents. For the statistical analysis, the Relative Importance Index Value method was used. From the survey results, it can be inferred that the majority of the respondents believe that the current traffic and level of service in addition to the percentage of heavy vehicles on the road segment is the critical factor when decision makers are prioritizing the urgency of winter road maintenance. These results will be used as the input for the fuzzy logic model in the next step.