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Let's talk about your projectAPTech's IDEA helps transportation authorities assess infrastructure needs
Summary
APTech’s IDEA is an interactive data visualization tool conceived by Applied Pavement Technology Inc., a full-service pavement engineering firm serving both US and international clients. This web-based application makes the content of traditional engineering reports interactive and customizable for APTech’s clients, resulting in more efficient and easy access to pavement condition and inventory information, maintenance and rehabilitation recommendations, and other engineering analysis results. While APTech has been delivering pavement management results to clients via interactive data-visualization methods for well over 20 years, APTech partnered with Pixo 10 years ago to take that delivery to the next level. For a decade and counting, Pixo has developed and maintained the framework and features that APTech uses to develop and deliver as-built IDEA sites for clients.
The challenge: making access to pavement management data interactive and customizable for a growing client roster.
APTech is a recognized leader in pavement engineering, providing solutions for roadway and airport pavements. To better serve their clients in an increasingly technology-driven industry, they pioneered the development of a web-based data visualization tool that provides clients with easy access to pavement management data and analysis results. APTech’s clients use the IDEA tool on a daily basis to view and access needed pavement-related data in order to explore budgetary scenarios and support planning for infrastructure improvements.
While many business applications follow strict, universal workflows (like a CMS or ERP), IDEA’s core value is in its adaptability. APTech needed a unique framework with flexibility to handle:
- Accommodating varying amounts and types of data for each client.
- Generating new individual instances of the app.
- Incorporating new ideas and technological enhancements in the future.
- Variable hosting: APTech’s clients needed to receive the deliverable, easily install it, and use it immediately.
The solution: a framework for creating individual instances of a web app.
Using Angular and OpenLayers for maps, Pixo developed a specialized tool suite that automates the creation of a unique, static web app instance for each client. This process takes APTech’s exported analysis and source data and translates it into a custom, deployable application.
Following the initial build, Pixo has continued to develop enhancements, including:
- Full WCAG-compliant styling for data visualizations within the IDEA app to meet specific APTech client needs.
- Integration of data and imagery collected with APTech’s EDGE automated data collection van. APTech’s EDGE van collects laser-based downward images of the pavement surface, right-of-way images of the roadway, and other roadway surface characteristics. The output from the EDGE van was incorporated into IDEA in 2018.
- The addition of detailed distress map layers.
- Support for multiple base map background layers including ESRI and Mapbox.
- An interactive airport feature that compares expected aircraft loadings and determined structural condition of individual pavement sections to show users where aircraft can safely go on an airfield.
- A constrained budget analysis feature that lets users view resulting pavement condition and specific funded work items associated with different user-defined budget scenarios. This feature is currently under construction and expected to be released in 2026.
The result: an adaptable solution that continues to serve and scale for an evolving market.
After 10 years of development partnering with APTech, IDEA continues to evolve and prove its long-term value. To date, APTech has implemented custom IDEAs for nearly 30 transportation agencies, including commercial airports, Department of Defense facilities, state DOTs, and cities. Pixo’s commitment to a flexible approach, usability fundamentals, and engineering best practices ensures the platform can easily scale and adapt to APTech’s evolving business and customer needs, making complex data sets accessible to all stakeholders.
“We were looking for a company that both had the technical capabilities we needed and was willing to let us work in a close partnership with them as a development team. Pixo has filled both of those roles. It has been a pleasure working and collaborating with Pixo over the past 10 years.”
—Todd Hoerner, P.E.; Vice President and Technology Director, APTech