App helps Pennsylvania get its bridges back

Editor's note: This article was updated to correct the name of Xplore Technologies.

The Mystery of the Missing Bridges may sound like a Hardy Boys novel, but it was a real problem for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Of course the bridges weren’t actually missing, but they might as well have been. There was no good way for state planners to know the number, condition and location of many of the smaller bridges in the state.

More Pennsylvania's planning agencies. How the team managed the web portal and user profiles.

Pennsylvania keeps detailed information on its larger bridges because it uses federal funds to help maintain and repair those whose spans are more than 20 feet across. All smaller bridges, thousands of which exist within one of the largest northeastern states, are the responsibility of nearby local towns or municipalities. Because the state wasn't responsible for their maintenance, over time locations of the bridges disappeared from the records.

"We knew we wanted to be able to holistically view the complete road and bridge system," said Pennsylvania Department of Transportation Planning Specialist for the Bridge Program Matthew D. Long. "But we didn't have a good way to make that happen other than collecting piles of paperwork from our planning partners, which would have to then be driven into the state office."

Instead, Long and the state created an app whereby local transportation planners working for counties and municipalities could survey the roads and bridges in their local areas, and report that information back to the state quickly and accurately.

The backend part of the system was set up to run on an Oracle database that is served by three clustered servers running ArcGIS. One handles mapping data. One manages the mobile clients for the bridge app. The third runs the Web-facing front end. But even with a backend ready to accept data, someone still had to go out and find the missing bridges.

"In Pennsylvania, a lot of people wear many hats," Long said. "So we knew we needed a simple system for recording data in the field because many of our planning partners wouldn't be GIS specialists."

The tool selected for the bridge hunt was the rugged ix104c5 tablet from Xplore Technologies. The unit features a sunlight-readable display, important for people who would be working exclusively outside, and it is rated to survive drops of up to seven feet in height. That's above the standard mil-spec, so it’s perfect for conditions in rural parts of the state. It also has a battery life of more than six hours, enough for workers to spend almost all day in the field without needing to recharge.

By leveraging approved funds from the Federal Highway Administration, Pennsylvania purchased the tablets and the software, as well as the customization needed to make it all work with the bridge program, for $525,000.