Exchange of experience: Information systems for the road sector

More than 50 participants met in Darmstadt on April 23rd and 24th to exchange their experience with information systems for the road sector. The event, organized by HELLER Ingenieurgesellschaft mbH, was attended by employees of the road authorities of the federal government, federal states and municipalities as well as by top representatives from abroad and the private sector. The speakers presented a wide range of topics as well as practical examples and contributed to discussions. This clearly showed that the need for user-friendly information systems in the road sector is increasing and that we are on the right track with our visions, ideas and solutions.

"In the information society, users have emancipated and expect information systems to be tailored to their expectations and needs." This sentence is one of the central messages of the event. As road construction engineers, we know about the expectations and needs of the users. Our task is to meet their requirements with innovative technology and to optimally support their processes. For this reason, putting the user at the center of attention is the guiding principle behind the development of our information system OnKo. In 2007, OnKo was developed for the quality assurance in condition surveys. It was important to quickly provide the enormous amounts of data from the condition survey and assessment and to visualize them in a user-friendly way. It soon was clear that there was more potential in OnKo's open and universal approach. In the meantime, almost 1000 users in Germany and abroad use Onko2 as an interactive information medium for network, inventory, condition, building and accident data. We are particularly pleased that OnKo has not only become a part of the processes but has also opened up completely new areas of application. It adds further value to existing, expensive information. Some processes, for example in maintenance planning, are hardly possible today without OnKo. These facts motivate us to further develop OnKo and keep it "alive".

We would like to thank the road construction authorities once again for their contributions. The event would not have been such a success without the interdisciplinary exchange. We are grateful for the contributions to the discussions and the suggestions for a new edition of the exchange of experience. We will be happy to follow this request and inform you timely.

At least for us, the HELLER Ingenieurgesellschaft mbH, this exchange of experience marks the beginning of a new chapter in the company's 10-year history.