RAMS USER MANUAL

http://rams.nhai.org/nhai/

Consultancy Services for Technical

Assistance to Strengthen Asset
Management Capacity of NHAI and
MORTH (WBTA Package-12)
Contract No. WBTA-12 (Loan 7980-IN)

Prepared By

Prepared For

HIMS Limited
Joint Venture with
SATRA Infrastructure Management
Services Pvt Ltd

National Highways Authority of India

June 2015

Consultancy Services for

Technical Assistance to
Strengthen Asset
Management Capacity of
NHAI and MORTH
Quality Assurance Statement
Prepared by:
Client Name:
National Highways Authority of India (NHAI)

Report Name:
RAMS User Manual

Rajshekar Gotimukul, Bhanu Chander,

Harish Krishna Nanduru

Reviewed by:
Raj Mallela, M.K.Saxena, Durga Konduru

Project/Contract Number:
Approved for issue by:
For NHAI: WBTA-12
Raj Mallela
For SATRA: 01041001
Date of Issue:

Project Manager:

June 2015

Raj Mallela

SATRA Infrastructure Management Services Pvt Ltd

605, Ashoka Bhoopal Chambers
S.P.Road, Begumpet
Secunderabad 500 003, Telangana, India
info@satragroup.in
www.satragroup.in

SATRA Infrastructure Management Services Pvt Ltd

605, Ashoka Bhoopal Chambers
S.P.Road, Begumpet
Secunderabad 500 003, Telangana, India
info@satragroup.in
www.satragroup.in

TABLE OF CONTENTS
1

INTRODUCTION ................................................................................. 1-3

1.1

INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................. 1-3

1.2

ABOUT THIS DOCUMENT .................................................................................. 1-3

PRE REQUISITES ............................................................................... 2-1

2.1

OVERVIEW................................................................................................... 2-1

2.2

SUPPORTED BROWSERS ................................................................................... 2-1

2.3

USEFUL SOFTWARE & PLUGINS .......................................................................... 2-1

USER INTERFACE LAYOUT ................................................................. 3-1

3.1

THE HOME PAGE ........................................................................................... 3-1

3.2

SIDE MENU.................................................................................................. 3-3

3.3

DATA TABLE................................................................................................. 3-4

3.4

EXPORT TO XLS FILE ...................................................................................... 3-6

3.5

MAP & LAYER INFORMATION .............................................................................. 3-6

3.6

LAYER & OBJECT SELECTOR .............................................................................. 3-8

3.7

GOOGLE EARTH............................................................................................. 3-9

3.8

CHARTS ...................................................................................................... 3-9

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 3-1: Home Page................................................................................................................. 3-1

Figure 3-2: RAMS Layout with Markup of Areas ................................................................................ 3-2
Figure 3-3: Collapse Buttons with Panels Uncollapsed ....................................................................... 3-2
Figure 3-4: Collapse Buttons with Panels Collapsed........................................................................... 3-3
Figure 3-5: Side Menu ................................................................................................................. 3-3
Figure 3-6: Report Opened in New Window...................................................................................... 3-4
Figure 3-7: Typical View Data Table ............................................................................................... 3-4
Figure 3-8: Layout Areas of Data Table ........................................................................................... 3-5
Figure 3-9: The Pager .................................................................................................................. 3-5
Figure 3-10: Find Records Popup ................................................................................................... 3-6
Figure 3-11: Controls in Find Records Popup .................................................................................... 3-6
Figure 3-12: Top Menu With Export Link Highlighted ......................................................................... 3-6
Figure 3-13: Map Area With Layer Control, Mini Map & Information Panel ............................................ 3-7
Figure 3-14: Map Controls ............................................................................................................ 3-8
Figure 3-15: Top Menu With Layer & Object Selector Highlighted ........................................................ 3-8
Figure 3-16: Layer Selector Showing Filtering while Typing ................................................................ 3-8
Figure 3-17: Object Selector Showing Filtering while Typing............................................................... 3-9
Figure 3-18: Top Menu With Google Earth Link Highlighted ................................................................ 3-9
Figure 3-19: Top Menu With Chart Link Highlighted .......................................................................... 3-9
Figure 3-20: Top Menu with Section IDs Option Highlighted ............................................................ 3-10
Figure 3-21: Top Menu With Type of Attribute Option Highlighted ..................................................... 3-10
Figure 3-22: Top Menu With Type of Graph Option Highlighted ......................................................... 3-11
Figure 3-23: Chart Context Menu Option Highlighted ...................................................................... 3-11
Figure 3-24: Chart Video Option .................................................................................................. 3-12
Figure 3-25: Video Player ........................................................................................................... 3-12

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LIST OF TABLES
Table 2-1: List of Supported Browsers ............................................................................................ 2-1
Table 2-2: Recommended Softwares .............................................................................................. 2-1

1
1.1

Introduction
Introduction

The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has received financing from the International Bank
for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) in the form of a loan towards the cost of NHAI Technical
Assistance Project. NHAI intends to apply a portion of the proceeds of this loan to strength Asset
Management Capacity of NHAI and Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MORTH). NHAI
awarded the consultancy services contract entitled, Consultancy Services for Technical Assistance to
Strengthen Asset Management Capacity of NHAI and MORTH, with Contract No WBTA-12 to HIMS
Ltd, New Zealand in joint venture with SATRA Infrastructure Management Services Pvt Ltd, India.
The project commenced on 31 October 2014 with an expected completion date of 30 October 2017.

1.2

About This Document

This Document; RAMS User Manual gives information and step by step guidance on Road
Asset Management System, a web based interactive service that allows the user to access live
data and published reports from the HIMS database. The structure of the User Manual is
described below.

Chapter-1 Introduction (current chapter)

Chapter-2 Pre requisites: This chapter describes the browsers supported and the basic
requirements for a good user experience in use of RAMS

Chapter-3 User Interface Layout: This chapter describes the layout of elements and
their functionality

This document is primarily developed for general users of HIMS, as well as road engineers
who have the basic knowledge of road referencing concepts and general road management
and maintenance practices.

Pre requisites

2.1

Overview
RAMS is a web based service to access data from the HIMS central database and various
published reports. The service also provides with an easy and user friendly way to export data
and view the spatial locations and layout of roads, links, structures etc. with added support for
locating the same in Google Earth if it is installed already.

2.2

Supported Browsers
RAMS has been designed to be compliant with W3C web standards and will work with most
modern browsers that are standards compliant. Keeping in mind the various operating systems
available today, the preferred browser is Mozilla Firefox due to its cross platform availability. A
list of browsers and the support levels is detailed [see Table 2-1].
Table 2-1: List of Supported Browsers

S.No.

Browser

Support

Mozilla Firefox

Versions 27 and above are fully supported

Sea Monkey

Versions 2.2 and above are fully supported

Chrome

Version 30 and above are fully supported

Opera

Versions 12 and above are fully supported

Apple Safari

Versions 6 and above are fully supported

Internet Explorer

Versions 10 and above are supported in standards mode

2.3

Useful Software & Plugins

The following software [see Table 2-12]. if pre-installed in the users system will enable better
functioning of RAMS
Table 2-2: Recommended Softwares
Software

Description

Availability

Google Earth

RAMS is capable of producing kml

files that can take the user directly
to the location shown currently on
the browser screen in Google
Earth.

Google Earth is available as a

free download from:
http://www.google.com/earth/do
wnload/ge/agree.html.

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Chapter 2: Pre requisite

Software

Description

Availability

Microsoft Excel

Any of these softwares can open

RAMS data exported in form of .xls
files

Microsoft Excel is available from

http://office.microsoft.com/enus/support/?av=zxl

Microsoft Excel is a proprietary

software made by Microsoft Corp.

Apache Open Office is available

from
http://www.openoffice.org/downl
oad/

or
Apache Open Office
or
Libre Office

Apache Open Office is an Open

Source free office productivity
suite maintained by Apache
Foundation.
Libre Office is an Open Source
free office productivity suite
maintained by The Document
Foundation

Libre Office is available from

http://www.libreoffice.org/downlo
ad/

Adobe Acrobat Reader

Adobe Acrobat Reader is a free

software that is used to open
Portable Document Format (PDF)
files.

Adobe Acrobat Reader is

available from
http://get.adobe.com/reader/

FireShot

FireShot is an open source

browser plugin that allows the
user to work easily with screen
clippings

FireShot is available from

http://screenshotprogram.com/fireshot/
In Mozilla Firefox it can be
installed from
https://addons.mozilla.org/enUS/firefox/addon/fireshot/

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3
3.1

User Interface Layout

The Home Page

In RAMS, user is directed to the home page (see- Fig: 3-1), this page provides the user with access to
all functions provided by the application.

Figure 3-1: Home Page

The Layout of RAMS and its functional areas are shown below (see Figure 3-2). At any point of time
during the use of the system, the user can restore the application to its initial state by clicking the
Refresh [

] button located at the top right corner of the screen. The main screen has five

different functional areas (see Figure 3.2)

1. Top Menu (the tool bar to Export Data, Google Earth interface, Help menu with Pre-loaded
RAMS Manual);
2. Side Menu (will have all Road Attribute Data and Standard Reports in PDF format);
3. Map (Map of Classified Road Network from where the Road Data can be accessed by clicking
on any Road / Link on the Map);
4. Layer Information (display the prime attribute data of link / feature selected from the Map);
5. Data Table (displays the Road Data in tabular format) and
6. The Pager (controls to allow the user to search and navigate through data from the selected
link).

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Chapter 3: User Interface Layout

Header

Refresh

Layer
Information

Map
Slide Menu

Data Table

Pager

Figure 3-2: RAMS Layout with Markup of Areas

The Side Menu, Data Table and Layer Information areas can be collapsed to edges by clicking on the
orange rectangles on their borders to expand the Map View (see Figure 3-3).

Collapse Button

Figure 3-3: Collapse Buttons with Panels Uncollapsed

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Chapter 3: User Interface Layout

Collapse Button

Figure 3-4: Collapse Buttons with Panels Collapsed

3.2

Side Menu

The side menu (see Figure 3-5) allows the user to select different aspects of data contained in the
HIMS database; the data is categorized into various heads. There is also a section in the menu
devoted to published reports.
Currently Selected Head
Data Links

Currently Selected Link

Other Heads
Data Links
Figure 3-5: Side Menu

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Chapter 3: User Interface Layout

Clicking any menu head will cause the menu to display the data available under the particular head
and clicking the data link will allow the user to view related data in the Data Table or if it is a report, it
will open as PDF file in a new window (see Figure 3-6).

Figure 3-6: Report Opened in New Window

3.3

Data Table

The data table (see Figure 3-7) is provided to allow the user to view and filter data from the link
selected in the side menu.

Figure 3-7: Typical View Data Table

The data table is laid out as different panels as shown (see Figure 3-8) to allow easy user interaction.
In case the table has a larger number of columns than that is possible to display on screen, the
Horizontal Scroll allows the user to view data of all columns.
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Chapter 3: User Interface Layout

Column Headers

Data

Horizontal Scroll
Pager

Figure 3-8: Layout Areas of Data Table

Clicking any column head (

) will allow sorting of data based on that column; further

clicks will reverse the direction of sorting.

The Pager (see Figure 3-9) section of the Data Table has many controls to allow the user to search
and navigate through data from the selected link.

Figure 3-9: The Pager

The data table by default shows the data filtered by link depending on selection from the Map. In case
the user wishes to reset the filter, clicking the Reload Grid Button

will remove all set filters and

show complete data.

To use new criteria for filtering, clicking Find Records Button

will bring a popup with options for

setting filters in the data.

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Chapter 3: User Interface Layout

Figure 3-10: Find Records Popup

Add Sub Group

Group Rule
Add New Rule

Sub Group

Remove Rule

Clear Filter

Apply Filter

Figure 3-11: Controls in Find Records Popup

3.4

Export to XLS File

The Export Link (see Figure 3-12) in the top menu allows the user to extract data in the data table
area and save it as an XLS.xls (Microsoft Excel Spreadsheet) file; the exported file will have data as
per applied filters.

Figure 3-12: Top Menu With Export Link Highlighted

3.5

Map & Layer Information

Map area (see Figure 3-13) is an interactive map viewer that helps the user view and select various
objects like Links, Structures, Traffic stations etc., and view the related information on the
Information Panel (see Figure 3-14) provided on the left side. Selection of Links, Structures or Traffic
station objects on the map causes a filter to be set on the data table, based on the Link ID related to
the object. To select an object, the user must first set the layer via the layer selector [see Section 3.6
Layer & Object Selector in Page 3-8]
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Chapter 3: User Interface Layout

Figure 3-13: Map Area With Layer Control, Mini Map & Information Panel
The map area has 5 controls (see Figure 3-14) to help the user navigate and view information.
The Layer Control allows the user to toggle visibility of each layer.
The Pan & Zoom controls, as the name suggests, allow the user to pan and zoom the map. By default,
the map area is in pan/zoom mode for mouse control. Click and drag allows pan operation, while
scrolling the mouse wheel allows zoom action, and a special zoom to a window is allowed by making a
window /rectangular selection while keeping the shift key pressed.
Mini Map Control allows the user to see the current window with respect to the country and also pan
over large areas easily.
Scale & Cursor Position allows the user to view distances on the map and also get coordinates of any
point on the map.
Information Panel shows information related to any object selected on the map

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Chapter 3: User Interface Layout

Layer Control

Pan & Zoom Control

Mini Map Control

Scale & Cursor Position

Information Panel

Figure 3-14: Map Controls

3.6

Layer & Object Selector

The layer and object selection (see Figure 3-15) controls are drop down lists that help the user to
quickly locate data about an object if the ID or parts of the ID are already known to the user. Both
these controls allow the user to either select using mouse clicks or by typing directly into the control
to filter the data. The filtering is not based specifically on starting or ending characters, rather on any
id matching with the character sequence typed in.

Figure 3-15: Top Menu With Layer & Object Selector Highlighted
The Layer Selector (see Figure 3-16) allows the user to specify a particular layer displayed on the
map. This control is also responsible for setting layers when viewing objects on the map [see Figure
3-14 Map & Layer Information on]. The selection on the layer selector also sets the ID list on object
selector.

Figure 3-16: Layer Selector Showing Filtering while Typing

The Object Selector (see Figure 3-17), as the name suggests, helps the user to locate and zoom to
the object whose ID has been selected. The selection of an object using this control also loads the
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Chapter 3: User Interface Layout

object information in the Information Panel (see Figure 3-14) as well as sets a link filter for the Data
Table [see Section 3.13 Data Table]

Figure 3-17: Object Selector Showing Filtering while Typing

3.7

Google Earth

The Google Earth (see Figure 3.18) link on the top menu allows the user to open a file to show the
currently visible map area in Google Earth 1 , if the software is installed.

Figure 3-18: Top Menu With Google Earth Link Highlighted

3.8

Charts

Charts are located at the top right menu on the screen (see Figure 3-19). It allows the user to
understand the available data of each link through graphical representation. Charts are available for
numeric data like Pavement Condition, Rutting Depth and Laser Roughness.

Figure 3-19: Top Menu With Chart Link Highlighted

The chart option navigates through the information, providing the relevant data of the Section ID,
Attribute Data in the Graph Type selected.
This control (see Figure: 3-20) is responsible for selecting section IDs when required, to select type of
attribute option and Graph type.

Link to download Google Earth is given in section 2.3 Useful Software & Plugins

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Chapter 3: User Interface Layout

Figure 3-20: Top Menu with Section IDs Option Highlighted

This control (See Figure 3-21) is responsible for selecting the type of attribute along with section ID
for Graphical representation of the section.

Figure 3-21: Top Menu With Type of Attribute Option Highlighted

This control (See Figure 3-22) is responsible for selecting the type of graph required for Graphical
representation of the Link.

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Chapter 3: User Interface Layout

Figure 3-22: Top Menu With Type of Graph Option Highlighted

Chart export (See Figure 3-23) provides options to print and download the charts in PDF and PNG

formats.

Figure 3-23: Chart Context Menu Option Highlighted

If you would like to see the video of the current section, click on the specific chart data, and the
system will prompt a message to play the video in next page.
Click on Ok to play video or else click on cancel button.
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Chapter 3: User Interface Layout

Figure 3-24: Chart Video Option

If you click on OK button, system will open a new page and the basic details of the video like
Section Name, Link_ID, and Date of Survey etc. will be displayed at the top of the video.

Click on play [
video page.

] button to play the video, click on close [

] button to close the

Figure 3-25: Video Player

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