Where the Weather Meets the Road A Research Agenda for Improving Road Weather Services (2004) / Chapter Skim
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5 Implementing Improved Road Weather Research and Management Programs
5 Implementing Improved Road Weather Research and Management Programs
Pages 127-152
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From page 127... ...
CURRENT ROAD WEATHER RESEARCH EFFORTS Highway Research Programs Highway research is coordinated by the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) , the states, the National Cooperative Highway Research Program, academia, and the private sector.
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From page 128... ...
. About $2.5 million of this funding is devoted to road weather research and devel opment (see Table 5-2)
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. The Department of Transportation's Research and Special Programs Administration administers the University Transportation Centers program, which was initiated under the Surface Transportation and Uniform Relocation Assistance Act of 1987.
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The most recent example was the Strategic Highway Research Program, a five-year, $150 million program authorized by Congress in 1987. The program was recommended by the Transportation Research Board to improve the performance of high way materials and highway construction and maintenance practices (TRB,
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A recent Transportation Research Board report requested by Congress identified several topics for a follow-on to the Strategic Highway Research Program, named the Future Strategic Highway Research Program. The report recommended a research program aimed at developing a systematic approach to highway renewal, preventing or reducing the severity of highway crashes, providing highway users with reliable travel times, and systematically integrating environmental, economic, and community requirements into the analysis, planning, and design of new highway capacity.
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From page 132... ...
The U.S. Weather Research Program is a partnership among several federal agencies, the American Meteorological Society, academia, and the private sector intended to coordinate efforts among these groups to acceler ate forecast improvements of high-impact weather and facilitate full use of advanced weather information.
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In general this is an environment that makes it even more difficult to develop an effective and lasting interdisciplinary research program. Road weather research proposals compete in a field of a large number of topics that more clearly fall within established transportation or meteorology funding programs.
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From page 134... ...
Furthermore, investigators generally retreat to their own discipline as soon as the programmed re search is completed. In the road weather research area there have been a number of successful funding programs of this type, including the Strategic Highway Research Program of the early 1990s and the Maintenance Deci sion Support System in more recent years.
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From page 135... ...
The road weather community is just beginning to develop such a focused research plan, largely under the leadership of the FHWA. PROPOSED ROAD WEATHER RESEARCH PROGRAM It is clear to the committee that road weather is a scientific and technical challenge that now can be met with appropriate policy, implementation of available technology based on current knowledge, and research that addresses the many areas where knowledge is lacking.
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From page 136... ...
An incremental investment in integrating these efforts will reap substantial benefits by producing a national road weather information system as part of the nation's emerg ing infostructure. The goals of the road weather research program should be to · maximize the use of available road weather information and tech nologies; · expand road weather research and development to enhance road way safety, capacity, and efficiency while minimizing environmental impacts; and · effectively implement new scientific and technological advances.
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The road weather research program should provide base funding that is dedicated to establishing and operating these research centers. This funding should support efforts to assemble a critical mass of researchers, acquire space and other infrastructure, and support stakeholder interaction.
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An alternative to re gional centers that avoids some of these initial costs is the concept of "technology development teams," which typically include researchers se lected competitively from various research centers; the selection process can, however, sometimes favor larger research efforts over individual re searchers. This concept has been used successfully by the Federal Aviation Administration's Aviation Weather Research Program to provide efficient and flexible operationally relevant research results.
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logical tie to the proposed regional research centers as a means to foster cooperation in the road weather research program. Partnerships involving all key parties will develop naturally around these demonstration roadways.
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Yet, for the proposed road weather research pro gram to succeed, centralized leadership at the federal level is essential in setting research priorities, administering grants, providing a central reposi tory for research findings, ensuring accountability, and fostering the transfer of new knowledge and technology to operational practice. The Federal Aviation Administration's Aviation Weather Research Program provides a
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From page 141... ...
The committee estimates that the research program will require on the order of $25 million per year based on an assessment of unmet needs, the capacity of the research community to conduct the program effectively, and costs for comparable transportation research initiatives in other areas, such as the Aviation Weather Research Program. The committee believes that many of the research and development challenges that have been identified will require more than a decade to solve, thus a long-term research and development program with appropriate funding commitments is required.
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The committee recommends that steps be taken to foster effective pub lic-private-academic partnerships in the area of road weather research and technology implementation. Essential partners in this effort include FHWA, NOAA, National Science Foundation, American Association of State High way and Transportation Officials, academia, state and local governments, the private sector, and nongovernmental organizations and associations
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as they would apply to the road weather research program. Well-coordinated research and operational implementation objectives in the public sector will focus the efforts of the academic sector and provide the private sector with increased opportunities to improve their products and services and thus grow their industry.
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This report is focused on identification of research required for the surface transportation community. As illustrated by the Strategic Highway Research Program asphalt example, an essential component of the overall research effort is the transfer of results to operational users in an effective and timely manner.
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The committee has identified several elements of effective transfer that have been validated over many decades. · Early and Continuing Involvement of Operational Stakeholders: Operational users of the technology should be made a part of the technology transfer team from the beginning.
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The committee recommends that the national road weather research program involve operational users as part of the research and develop ment effort from the beginning. The user community for road weather information is broad and includes the general public, commercial ship ping and bus transit companies, emergency managers, those who build, maintain, and operate the nation's roadways, and vehicle manufactur ers.
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. Increasing support for road weather research at universities, a likely outcome of the proposed program, will create opportunities for graduate and undergraduate students to participate in such research projects as part of their education.
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Parallel complementary training for dispatchers, who make choices about routes and timing for deliveries, will also be necessary to gain full benefit. An output of a long-term road weather research program will be the development of "intelligent agents" that will be embedded in "smart" ve hicles and personal information management systems (the successors to today's personal data assistants)
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From page 149... ...
To be most effective, educational programs should allow feedback from the users, enabling evaluation of new road weather products and information and allowing assessment of the effectiveness of the instruction. State, county, and municipal employees responsible for road maintenance and construction, emergency management, law enforcement, and traffic management will need training as new road weather technologies and tools are deployed.
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From page 150... ...
The road weather research program should incorporate training on the use of road weather information and technology into driver education nationwide. This training needs to start with new-driver education and be reinforced periodically as new technology is introduced or other circumstances arise, such as when a driver moves to a new region with a different climate.
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From page 151... ...
Some situations, such as evacuations caused by hurricane landfall or spread of hazardous materials, require coordination of roadway, air, rail, and transit modes, making it appropriate to consider all modes when conducting this sort of research. Lessons can be learned from aviation weather research, which has been conducted for decades, and has much applicability to all surface transportation modes.
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In particular the well-established aviation weather research programs offers many lessons learned that should be examined by the emerging road weather research program.
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