Contractor Performed Quality Control on KyTC Projects

Section 404 of the Clean Water Act (CWA) mandates that state agencies and other entities perform compensatory mitigation when their activities impair jurisdictional waters. In the Commonwealth of Kentucky, the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet (KYTC) is required to pay in-lieu fees or purchase stream mitigation credits when a roadside ditch is impaired or relocated as part of a road construction project. In-lieu fees and stream mitigation credits are costly, and ditches that have suffered degraded habitat and loss of hydrogeomorphic functionality are treated as total losses when they are impacted by construction and maintenance activities. This raises the question of whether the United States Corps of Engineers (USACE) would be receptive to alternative mitigation and monitoring practices that impose a less stringent financial burden on the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet, but which still comply with CWA regulations. This report discusses methodologies used to evaluate the quality of instream and riparian habitat, Section 404 of the CWA and its implications for mitigation of lost or damaged jurisdictional ditches, and the strategies that have been used by other states to fulfill their Section 404 mitigation requirements. The authors highlight mitigation practices that depart from the norm and which place a less onerous financial burden on state transportation agencies. KYTC officials presented this report’s key findings to the USACE Louisville District Office in January 2015 in an effort to receive approval to experiment with novel restoration techniques. The USACE granted KYTC license to implement these techniques on a project-by-project basis. Before implementation on each project, the Cabinet must receive formal approval from USACE officials. Although this was not the blanket mandate that KYTC hoped for, it indicated the Louisville District is willing to study the effectiveness of alternative mitigation strategies. Despite the Cabinet’s request, USACE officials did not approve a plan to reduce post-restoration monitoring requirements. Kentucky Transportation Center (KTC) researchers suggested that KYTC perform exhaustive monitoring of the performance of completed projects that used alternative mitigation techniques. Having information on the short-, medium-, and long-term performance of these sites could – if the results are promising – pave the way to the wider adoption of alternative mitigation practices and could eventually reduce the level of post-restoration monitoring required by the USACE.

Three recently completed road construction projects were investigated to determine Kentucky Transportation Cabinet (KYTC) effectiveness in implementing project commitments (including environmental commitments). Documentation was obtained from KYTC districts in which the projects were constructed and KYTC officials involved with the projects from planning through construction were interviewed. The projects were inspected to audit completion of project commitments. Key stakeholders (officials of local governments, resource agencies, metropolitan planning organizations, interest groups, and adjacent landowners) were interviewed about the projects. They were asked to grade KYTC for implementation of project commitments using a standard report card format. The findings for these investigations are presented. The auditing procedure employed in this study can be used to rate future KYTC projects, identify problems, and suggest solutions.

The Kentucky Transportation Cabinet’s Division of Planning collects weight data, traffic volume data, and vehicle classification data. These data are used as inputs to determine equivalent single axle loads (ESALs). ESALs are used in the pavement design process to determine pavement thickness. There have been inconsistencies observed during the computation of the ESALs during the past three or four years. These inconsistencies have resulted in a significant inflation in the estimate of ESALs per year, which if used in the design process would result in significantly thicker pavements. For example, the ESALs per truck axle for rural principal arterials and rural minor arterials, between 1998 and 1999, more than doubled from, 0.275 to 0.555. Although there was only a small increase in this number after 1999, the value remained significantly higher than expected. The objective of this research study was to evaluate the weight data collection equipment, on-site calibration procedures, and sampling techniques used by the Division of Planning for the different Aggregate Classes of highways in an effort to standardize procedures used by the Division of Planning to collect weight data.

This report provides two analyses for obtaining a quantitative means of rating the condition of railroad‐highway at‐grade crossings based on their measured roughness. Phase One of this report examined 11 crossings in the Lexington area by use of a laser based inertial profiler from the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet (KYTC) and a Face Rolling Dipstick. Phase Two was a continuation of Phase One with 26 crossings examined using inertial profilers from both the KYTC and the National Center of Asphalt Technology. Objective ratings based on rideability were obtained and wheelpath profiles were measured for each crossing. Several roughness indexes were computed from the measured profiles. A correlation between these indexes and subjective rideability ratings were examined in each study. Analysis of the data showed a tendency of objective ratings to decrease as roughness increases. This study found that highway inertial profilers are not an appropriate tool for determining roughness over short distances such as railroad crossings due to their application for testing of longer distances. It is anticipated that this report will be referenced for future research on this topic.

Many of Kentucky’s two-lane rural roads pose an above average risk for fixed object crashes. In Kentucky, run-off-road (ROR) collisions with fixed objects account for 18.9% of all crashes and 41.6% of fatal crashes. Accordingly, ROR crashes are a significant public safety hazard that must be addressed through judicious investments in safety improvements. Until recently, transportation engineers and planners have mostly leveraged qualitative metrics to prioritize safety investments, however, qualitative methodologies are problematic because they may rely excessively on subjective opinion and intuition. This study applied methodologies and software from the U.S. Road Assessment Program (usRAP) to develop quantitative, objective roadside safety ratings for rural two-lane roads in the state of Kentucky on which 20 or more crashes occurred from 2010 to 2015. Kentucky Transportation Center researchers generated usRAP star rating scores following standard protocols and, to validate the methodology, compared those scores to the number of ROR collisions over the specified interval. Analysis revealed robust correlations between star rating scores (and star ratings) and crash data, justifying their as an objective measure of roadside safety. Researchers also delivered a comprehensive database containing over 126,000 records to the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet, which can be used to examine roadside severity and potentially inform future highway investments.

This study created an information base to improve decisions about the replacement or rehabilitation of historic truss bridges. During the first phase of the research, information on the history and design of the 109 bridges in the study was assembled. With the assistance of historic preservation professionals, 75 of those bridges were selected for further study for their potential for rehabilitation. During the second phase, the KTC research team, engineers from the KYTC bridge division, and 12 highway district engineers, who are responsible for the day-to-day care and maintenance of the bridges, evaluated the condition and functional context of the 75 bridges. The goal was to identify those that are good candidates for preservation through rehabilitation. The district engineers were of the opinion that only 14 of the 75 bridges needed to be replaced. However, there was an additional subset of 13 bridges that, in their opinion, present some significant obstacles to preservation related to functional inadequacy or some other problem with the bridge. The bridge engineers estimated considerably higher levels of effort to preserve these 13 bridges (an average of 7.42 on a 10 point scale) than for the 48 remaining bridges (an average of 3.82 on the 10 point scale).

The Department of Environmental Analysis at the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet has expressed an interest in feature-recognition capability because it may help analysts identify environmentally sensitive features in the landscape, including those relating to historic preservation, archaeology, endangered species habitat, and geology. LIDAR Analyst and Feature Analyst are a pair of geoprocessing software packages that have been developed by Textron Systems. Using this software, users can use LIDAR data to identify finely-scaled user-specified features. The software’s automated feature extraction saves time that might otherwise be spent manually analyzing images and digitizing features. This report explores the capabilities and accuracy of this software by using LIDAR data to identify sinkholes throughout a small area in Kentucky. This report also discusses an alternative LIDAR-based geoprocessing methodology developed by the Kentucky Geological Society. The method relies on ArcGIS and Python scripting to identify sinkholes. The feasibility and applicability of these methodologies are compared, the workflow for each method is outlined, and the capabilities and limitations of each are noted. Sample results—the identification of sinkholes—from each methodology are presented. The research team found the batch processing capability built into LIDAR and Feature Analyst adequate and beneficial for smaller projects, such as projects that prioritize the extraction of buildings, trees, and forest regions.

The contents of this report reflect the views ofthe authors who are responsible for the facts and accuracy of the data presented herein. The contents do not necessarily reflect the official views or policies of the University of Kentucky, the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet, nor the Federal Highway Administration. This report does not constitute a standard, specification, or regulation. The inclusion of manufacturer names and trade names are for identification purposes and are not to be considered as endorsements.

The study of earth pressure distribution on buried structures has a great practical importance in constructing highway embankments above pipes and culverts. Based on Spangler’s research, the supporting strength of a conduit depends primarily on three factors: 1) the inherent strength of the conduit; 2) the distribution of the vertical load and bottom reaction; and 3) the magnitude and distribution of lateral earth pressures which act against the sides of the structure. Rigid culverts are frequently used in Kentucky for routing streams beneath highway embankments because of rolling and mountainous terrain, numerous streams, shallow depths to bedrock, which creates unyielding foundations, and the necessity of using high fills which create large vertical stresses acting on culverts. As a means of exploring ways of reducing large vertical earth pressures acting on a buried structure, ultra-lightweight geofoam was placed in a trench above a reinforced rigid box culvert in Russell County, KY. This study provides strong evidences from both numerical model analysis and in-situ test data to indicate that geofoam is an ideal elasto-plastic material to reduce vertical load on top of a rigid culvert resting on a rigid foundation. The load on the top of a culvert can be reduced to 20% of traditional design load after 2-ft-thick geofoam is placed on top of it. Results from numerical model are more conservative when compared to actual test data. As much as 57% of settlement from geofoam has been recorded. Stresses on the top of a culvert where geofoam was placed have reached a relatively stable level which is expected at the yield point of the geofoam. This technology can be used in applications which require controlled pressure on rigid underground structure. Whether geogoam is used or not used, the model analysis and test data show that the earth pressure acting on the sidewall does not change significantly. Although the pressure acting on the sidewall is slightly higher when geofoam is used on top of the culvert only, the value is still below the design value used by the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet. Use of geofoam placed in an imperfect trench significantly reduces the vertical stresses acting on the top of the culvert.

Technicians are a vital component to the success of any roadway projects. Unfortunately, the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet (KYTC) is experiencing significant shortages of technicians among all aspects of construction and maintenance. Training and developing the adequate numbers of qualified technicians is a substantial endeavor that requires a comprehensive examination of the adequacy of current training program versus the anticipated skill needs of technicians on future projects. Two questionnaires were developed to identify this gap. One is to investigate the skills and trainings that the Cabinet’s technicians possesses and received, and the second is to investigate the skills and/or knowledge which section engineers believe are required among their technicians. Through the analysis of the two surveys, this research found current training programs in Kentucky could cover most of the necessary knowledge and skills for transportation technicians, although more wide cooperation and reciprocity with outside training agencies should be built. However, current training programs are not sufficient enough to satisfy the future technician training needs, especially in the area of grading, structure, soil and maintenance and environment. The research also found technician’s most favorite training methods are on-the-job and classroom hands-on, but on-the-job training has not become one of the major sources where the Cabinet’s technicians received their training. Inability to help promotion and increase salary, schedule conflict and certificate’s short validness are the major barriers which prevented technician’s training participation.

The Kentucky Transportation Cabinet’s (KYTC) bridge inventory is rapidly aging. As such, the Cabinet needs to identify and implement relevant preventative maintenance (PM) actions to extend the useful service lives of those structures. Maintenance actions, costs, and application interval/repair durability information have been obtained for both cyclical and condition-based bridge PM. Additionally, information rehabilitation actions were acquired from a regional Department of Transportation (DOT) survey and from other literature. As part of this study, the Kentucky Transportation Center (KTC) researchers monitored a KYTC bridge washing project to assess its level of effectiveness and to identify potential improvements. Based upon these tasks, recommended guidance was provided to KYTC for use when implementing bridge PM programs. The guidance includes a discussion of critical PM activities, strategies to adopt training and work documents (i.e., special notes) for contract work, and the implementation of work standards/special operating procedures for work performed by KYTC personnel. This report also includes details on the tools and training KYTC district-level personnel will need and outlines a roadmap for conducting pilot programmatic PM work in several districts.

Simple SummaryStandardization of flow-cytometric assessment of minimal residual disease in acute lymphoid leukemia (ALL) is necessary to allow concordant multicentric application of the methodology. This is a prerequisite for internationally collaborative trials, such as the AIEOP-BFM-ALL and the ALL IC-BFM trial. We developed and applied a comprehensive training and quality control program involving a large number of international laboratories within the I-BFM consortium to complement standardization of the methodology with an educational component as well as with persistent quality control measures to allow large ALL treatment trials which use multi-laboratory FCM-MRD assessments for risk stratification of pediatric patients with ALL.Monitoring of minimal residual disease (MRD) by flow cytometry (FCM) is a powerful prognostic tool for predicting outcomes in acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). To apply FCM-MRD in large, collaborative trials, dedicated laboratory staff must be educated to concordantly high levels of expertise and their performance quality should be continuously monitored. We sought to install a unique and comprehensive training and quality control (QC) program involving a large number of reference laboratories within the international Berlin-Frankfurt-Münster (I-BFM) consortium, in order to complement the standardization of the methodology with an educational component and persistent quality control measures. Our QC and quality assurance (QA) program is based on four major cornerstones: (i) a twinning maturation program, (ii) obligatory participation in external QA programs (spiked sample send around, United Kingdom National External Quality Assessment Service (UK NEQAS)), (iii) regular participation in list-mode-data (LMD) file ring trials (FCM data file send arounds), and (iv) surveys of independent data derived from trial results. We demonstrate that the training of laboratories using experienced twinning partners, along with continuous educational feedback significantly improves the performance of laboratories in detecting and quantifying MRD in pediatric ALL patients. Overall, our extensive education and quality control program improved inter-laboratory concordance rates of FCM-MRD assessments and ultimately led to a very high conformity of risk estimates in independent patient cohorts.

There are two main issues stemming from Vallee’s (2002) comments on Dominy et al. (2001b). First, he raises the importance of quality assurance/quality control (QA/QC) during resource estimation programs, and second, he indicates that the resolution and understanding of continuity (grade and geological) issues are paramount in the classification of resources. In particular, continuity is critical at the boundary between the Inferred and Indicated Mineral Resource categories. The original contribution agrees with the importance of these points, and the principal author offers the following discussion and clarification. Further comment is also provided on the reporting of grade uncertainty through grade ranges. It is worth remembering that vein-gold deposits (e.g., shear-zone, lode-gold, mesothermal types etc.), particularly those containing coarse gold particles (e.g., >100 μm), generally show large variations in grade and an erratic grade distribution. In most cases, diamond drilling is a good measure of geological continuity (depending on drill spacing), but a poor measure of grade and its distribution. High-nugget effect deposits rank among the most difficult deposit types in terms of producing an accurate and precise resource estimate, and clearly represent a distinct deposit type. ### Quality Assurance/Quality Control The issue of quality assurance (QA) and quality control (QC) during exploration, estimation/evaluation and exploitation has been at the forefront of industry perceptions since the Bre-X affair in the late 1990s. The need for QA/QC programs is paramount in any mining/minerals project (Vallee, 1998a, 1998b, 2002). Quality is a critical issue at all stages of a minerals project. For example, QA/QC of analytical and test data, and the corroboration of geological data within the resource/reserve estimation process must now be considered mandatory. Indeed, the Canadian National Instrument 43–101 requires mandatory QA/QC programs (CSA, 2001). The 1999 JORC Code does not prescribe QA/QC programs but, for example, QA/QC for sampling/assaying is …

An analysis which compares the quality assurance/quality control (QA/QC) systems adopted in the highway, nuclear power plant, and U.S. Navy construction areas with the traditional quality control approach used in building construction is presented. Full participation and support by the owner as well as the contractor and AE firm are required if a QA/QC system is to succeed. Process quality control, acceptance testing and quality assurance responsibilities must be clearly defined in the contract documents. The owner must audit these responsibilities. A contractor quality control plan, indicating the tasks which will be performed and the fact that QA/QC personnel are independent of project time/cost pressures should be submitted for approval. The architect must develop realistic specifications which consider the natural variability of material. Acceptance criteria based on the random sampling technique should be used.

To ensure quality of healthcare delivery, radiological equipment and personnel working in a medical imaging service require performance evaluation, including radiation safety assessments. It is necessary to establish and implement quality assurance/quality control (QA/QC), radiation protection and maintenance programs—the extent of which depend on the complexity of equipment and procedures. The programs should be established by professionals such as medical physicists or biomedical engineers but can be carried out by staff in the rural health center under the guidance (physical and/or virtual) of the professional experts. For the programs to function adequately, a person among the technical or nursing staff should assume the responsibilities for the QA/QC and maintenance programs. The same person may also function as a radiation safety officer, or such role may be entrusted to a clinical individual. This chapter outlines the elements of such programs and provides references to specific details.