A case study of route solving for oversized transport : the use of GIS functionalities in transport of transformers, as part of maintaining a reliable power infrastructure

Sammanfattning: Power supply is a social necessity, and will so continue to be in the near future. Therefore, safe and steady deliverance of power supply is a fundamental duty of the societies and the preparedness of the vulnerability of the infrastructures is highly prioritized. The power supply comprises every component needed for transmission of electrical power from generation to consumption, power transformers are key components of this network, transforming electrical power to customized levels. The aim of this master thesis was to present methods on how to improve the establishment of power transformers. More specifically, the scope of the aim was to improve the timeframe for the exchange of transformers by simplifying and improving the aspect of route planning, and thereby to generate improved transformer preparedness. This was done using Geographical Information Systems, involving the building of a multimodal network dataset and performing route calculations. The location of the study was set to southern Norway and the distance between the connector stations Sylling and Stølen. The analysis was based on information about the sea ways, landfalls, electronic road network, height, road block, weight, speed and distance. A method for effective route planning was developed and the distance Sylling-Stølen was used in a case study, where modeled and actual transport routines were compared. The results show a difference between the actual and the modeled routes, both on duration and path, mainly due to a low focus on bridges and to inaccurate data. The overall difference in time was minor, the modeled route diverging only one hour from the actual, the difference on specific stretches were however greater, either witnessing of potential of faster transport or data which has not been adapted close enough to the actual situation.