Abstract
<p>The Idaho Transportation Department (ITD) is interested in developing two new software tools to improve the efficiency of the highway lighting and signalization design process. ITD currently performs road lighting/signalization design with the MicroStation CADD design program, plus two specialized software tools. These tools each have disadvantages: </p>
<p>
<ul>
<li>The GTE Aladdin software suggests a pattern of light fixture placement so the designer can decide where lights should be located. However, the program uses data from an idealized straight road. As a result, the designer has to adjust the pattern to the road characteristics of the current design, adding additional time to the design process.</li>
<li>The proprietary ITD software calculates minimum wire gauges for the designer. This program creates no output file, and it sometimes generates illogical results.</li>
<li>In addition, both packages are DOS-based. They cannot be used from within MicroStation, adding even more time to the design process. And, on some Windows NT or Unix environments, they cannot be used at all. </li>
</ul>
</p>
<p><br />The University of Idaho’s National Institute for Advanced Transportation Technology (NIATT) contracted with ITD to conduct two research projects:</p>
<p><ol>
<li>NIATT is developing a software tool that runs within MicroStation and provides lighting circuitry graphics and also calculates the minimum wire gauges for various electrical circuits in illumination and signalization</li>
<li>NIATT has researched the feasibility of developing a software tool that provides complete computer aided road lighting design, also within MicroStation.</li>
</ol></p>