Where the Weather Meets the Road A Research Agenda for Improving Road Weather Services (2004) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
Executive Summary
Executive Summary
Pages 1-14
The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.
From page 1... ...
An improved strategy for addressing the impacts of weather on surface transportation has the potential to help mitigate roadway congestion and save lives. High-quality weather observations and forecasts specific to the roadway environment could help users, including drivers, fleet dispatchers, and law enforcement and emergency management personnel, make better decisions, thereby increasing travel efficiency and safety during adverse weather conditions.
|
From page 2... ...
The notion of smart vehicles in constant communication with weather informa tion providers and traffic control centers, commercial fleets constantly ad justing their routing to avoid anticipated storms, and road maintenance personnel being guided continuously by telemetered in-road sensors no longer needs to be limited to the realm of science fiction. The Committee on Weather Research for Surface Transportation was formed at the request of the Federal Highway Administration to investigate the current state of knowledge regarding road weather conditions and to recommend key areas of research to enhance operational production of weather-related information for roads (see Appendix A for the full statement of task)
|
From page 3... ...
Goals of the Program The goals of the recommended national road weather research program should be to (1) maximize the use of available road weather information and technologies; (2)
|
From page 4... ...
An alternative to regional centers that avoids some of these initial costs is technology development teams, for which researchers are selected competitively from various research centers to work together on a specific research and devel opment problem. 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.
|
From page 5... ...
Although the Federal Highway Administration is recommended as the primary funding recipient, the committee feels that the dedicated funds for this program will be highly leveraged with funds focused on other initiatives that have an affinity with road weather research and development. Steps should also be taken to foster effective public-private-academic partnerships in road weather research and technology implementation.
|
From page 6... ...
multiple mechanisms for communicating road weather information to varied users in ways that support better informed decision making; and 5. an infostructure that takes advantage of new technologies to monitor and predict road weather conditions and then effectively convey road weather information to end users.
|
From page 7... ...
Use real-time weather information in the operation of the transportation system. The road weather research program should support development of operational modeling systems for roadway management that include realtime weather information.
|
From page 8... ...
To attain an improved road weather observation network the road weather research program should support efforts to establish standards for observing procedures and station siting to ensure that (1) the data are repre sentative of the roadway environment and (2)
|
From page 9... ...
The committee recommends that the road weather research program take steps to maximize the utility and quality of road weather information. First, to facilitate sharing among multiple entities, the road weather community should help standardize formats of geolocated data and associated metadata (e.g., the National Transportation Communications for Intelligent Transportation System Protocol Object Definitions for Environmental Sensor Stations)
|
From page 10... ...
Improve prediction and warning of weather-influenced hazards that rapidly impede roadway use. The road weather research program should support research to improve predictions and warnings of weather-induced hazards that rapidly impede roadway use, such as flash floods, avalanches, mudslides, and other debris flows.
|
From page 11... ...
The road weather research program should support the development of means for estimating the inherent uncertainty in road weather information. Advanced weather decision support systems that assimilate many diverse sources of information need to estimate uncertainty and provide easily understood metrics to aid users in making optimal decisions.
|
From page 12... ...
The road weather research program should support research into the human and cultural factors involved in driver decision making under a variety of weather conditions and in driver response to new technologies for the delivery of road weather information. Important aspects of this research include the information, content, and format for optimum response, and safe methods for communicating with vehicle operators, especially during hazardous weather conditions.
|
From page 13... ...
The committee recommends that the national road weather research program involve operational users as part of the research and development effort from the beginning. The user community for road weather information is broad and includes the general public; commercial shipping and bus transit companies; emergency managers; those who build, maintain, and operate the nation's roadways; and vehicle manufacturers.
|
From page 14... ...
Seek out synergies and efficiencies between road weather research and parallel efforts regarding other modes of transportation. The committee recommends that the road weather research program routinely monitor research parallel to surface operations in aviation, rail, and transit to exploit applicable overlap.
|
Key Terms
This material may be derived from roughly machine-read images, and so is provided only to facilitate research.
More
information on Chapter Skim is available.