The design and implementation of a maintenance information model for rural municipalities

Maintenance Management is an orderly and systematic approach to planning, organizing, monitoring and evaluating maintenance activities and their costs. The decaying conditions of rural roads are often attributed to the absence of a formal maintenance system and lack of resources. However, rural municipalities are constantly looking for ways to reduce cost and increase productivity in maintaining their infrastructure. Typically, rural road municipalities are directed by urban road agencies to use the same maintenance management process used by them. However, because of the differences in the type and amount of maintenance work done by rural and urban municipalities, it is hard to use the same kind of a system for both. Rural road municipalities require a more centralized information system fully controlled by them. In this paper, a rural maintenance information system will be presented. The system was developed to facilitate the maintenance process for rural road public works using modern database management systems. In addition, a case study to implement the information system in a rural municipality in the United States (Calhoun County, Michigan) will be discussed.