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Surface Transportation Weather: Assessment of Current Capabilities and Future Trends

Surface Transportation Weather: Assessment of Current Capabilities and Future Trends. William Mahoney Richard Wagoner National Center For Atmospheric Research (NCAR) ITSA Annual Meeting Phoenix, AZ April 2005. Surface Transportation Weather Trends. Building a Community.

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Surface Transportation Weather: Assessment of Current Capabilities and Future Trends

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  1. Surface Transportation Weather: Assessment of Current Capabilities and Future Trends William Mahoney Richard Wagoner National Center For Atmospheric Research (NCAR) ITSA Annual Meeting Phoenix, AZ April 2005

  2. Surface Transportation Weather Trends Building a Community Surface transportation weather continues to gain national attention! Several road weather initiatives are in progress and new concepts are being developed.

  3. Surface Transportation Weather Trends TRB State DOTs Stakeholder involvement is expanding! AASHTO National Labs Surface Transportation Weather Capabilities Private Sector Universities Auto Companies NOAA & NASA AMS ITSA

  4. Surface Transportation Weather Trends Where are we heading? What are the requirements? What are the opportunities? What can the science support?

  5. Rest area kiosk Surface Transportation Weather Trends WANTED! A seamless, high resolution, weather & road condition database of current and future conditions that can feed advanced ITS technologies such as: • 511 • Operations decision support • Traveler information systems • In-vehicle information systems • Traffic management systems • Control systems Traffic Management Center

  6. Passive surface sensor Sub pavement probe Surface Transportation Weather Trends NEEDED! Improvements in: • Weather sensing (all scales) • Road condition sensing • Weather prediction • Data fusion • Information dissemination • Human factors • Benefits assessments

  7. WRF model precipitation prediction over Colorado for MDSS Surface Transportation Weather Trends Weather Prediction Trends • Improved horizontal resolution – 12 km heading to 5 km CONUS • Need improved vertical resolution – now ~32 levels (surface to 40,000 ft) • Coupled models - Land surface models - Air chemistry (pollution) - Transportation models - Fire Hurricane Isabel September 2003

  8. Soil Moisture Feedback from snowfall needs to be factored into next model run! Volumetric soil moisture at 5 cm below the ground surface simulated by HRLDAS; valid at 1200 UTC 31 May 2002. Surface Transportation Weather Trends Land Surface Modeling • Data • Soil moisture • Snow cover • Albedo • Vegetation type • Greenness fraction • Soil type • Many others • Feedback important for model initialization – especially for near road surface predictions.

  9. IA005 IA003 IA017 IA016 Des Moines, Iowa Surface Transportation Weather Trends Remote Sensing NASA and NOAA satellite data: • Road temperature • Land surface character • Temperature • Vegetation type • Greenness fraction • Albedo • Snow cover • Land use • ASTER • AST07 (Surface Reflectance) • AST08 (Surface Temperature) • EROS Data Center Acquired: October 22, 2003 VNIR – 15m

  10. SSI Ice Camera Vaisala Spectro Yankee Total Precipitation Sensor Lincoln Lab video Image Processing Surface Transportation Weather Trends Sensing Weather and Road Conditions Improvements expected in: • Weather sensing (all scales) - winter precipitation gauges - video imagery • Road condition sensing - optical based sensors - laser based sensors - active sensors (freeze point) • Data fusion methods • Information dissemination • Human factors

  11. 45oF 43oF 44oF 45oF 38oF 44oF Surface Transportation Weather Trends Vehicle Infrastructure Integration Extracting & deriving weather data from vehicles: • Air temperature • Road friction from ABS • Precip. (Y/N) from wipers • Precip. intensity (wiper speed) • Radar (collision avoidance) • Air density

  12. Surface Transportation Weather Trends In-Vehicle Weather Information Real time weather hazard information will be part of in-vehicle information systems • Weather hazards - High winds - Tornado - Heavy snow/rain • Road Hazards - Black ice - Drifting - Flooding Real-time Weather Information Here

  13. Surface Transportation Weather Trends Data Fusion – Road Weather Impact Products New weather and road condition data (incl. VII and Clarus data) will be integrated into a seamless information database(s) to support: • 511 • In-vehicle information • Traveler information • Highway operations • Control systems

  14. Surface Transportation Weather Trends Weather and Transportation Modeling Dynamic control strategies will be developed and adopted to optimize operations during poor weather conditions. Important for determining: • Signal timing • Ramp metering • Variable speed limits • Other control strategies Courtesy of the FHWA

  15. Surface Transportation Weather Trends Weather Challenges • Need systematic approach to weather research • Partnership between weather and transportation communities Targets of Opportunity • Improved road weather observing capabilities • More sophisticated forecasting systems • Applications tailored to transportation managers and users From Jeff Paniati (ITSA 2003)

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