Data Model and Method of Database Federation for Expressway Infrastructure Management

Maintenance planning is one of the most important processes in the operation and maintenance of expressway structures. Conventional maintenance planning uses experience-driven methods by engineers and technicians, which has limitations for creating valid maintenance plans. In recent years, data-driven method has become very important. It tries to overcome the limitation by using various data such as environmental conditions, design records and inspection records, and the evaluation of damages of the structures. This method is effective only when we have large amount of standard and integrated data of structures such as bridges, pavement, tunnels, and soil structure. To manage these data, standard data formats and integrated databases are necessary. The ultimate goal of this study is to establish a new integrated data infrastructure which enables the data-driven method in highway infrastructure management. This infrastructure consists of three elements: (1) integrated data formats, (2) uniform access interface for the data, and (3) integrated visualization interfaces for the highway management. This paper focuses on the first element: integrated data format. In this paper, we propose a new data model which integrates various data for the highway management. This model provides two main features. First, it has high compatibility with conventional de-facto standard data formats such as NEXCO East Group Standard RIMS Data Format and JHDM (Japan Highway Data Model). Second, it can handle large amount of sensor data. We have already finished developing draft specification of the data model and also have implemented prototype database based on the data model.