GIS-based network routing procedures for overweight and oversized vehicles

The objective of this article is to document the development of an automati c procedure for the routing of overweight vehicles with load-carrying and v ertical clearance restrictions for the bridges of a highway network. The us e of a network routing procedure within a geographic information system (GI S) operating in a Pc environment is one of the distinctive features of the proposed approach. The procedure automatically identifies all bridges on a specified route and evaluates the adequacy of the bridge structures as well as vertical and horizontal clearance requirements for a given vehicle. A G IS computerized support methodology consistent with the Texas Administrativ e Code is developed. In particular, the proposed approach uses bridge load formulas to evaluate the adequacy of bridge structures for incoming overloa ds. Sample runs of the procedure using Texas data indicate that the procedu re is computationally efficient.