Surface Transportation Weather: Assessment of Current Capabilities and Future Trends William Mahoney...

Surface Transportation Weather: Assessment of Surface Transportation Weather: Assessment of Current Capabilities and Future TrendsCurrent Capabilities and Future Trends

William MahoneyRichard Wagoner

National Center For Atmospheric Research(NCAR)

ITSAAnnual MeetingPhoenix, AZApril 2005

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Surface transportation weather continues to gain national attention!

Several road weather initiatives are in progress and new concepts are being developed.

Surface Transportation Weather Trends

Building a Community

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Stakeholder

involvement is

expanding!

Surface TransportationWeather Capabilities

State DOTs

NationalLabs

AMS

NOAA &

NASA

PrivateSector

Auto Companies

Universities

AASHTO

ITSA

TRB


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Where are we heading?

What are the requirements?

What are the opportunities?

What can the science support?


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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


Rest area kiosk

Traffic Management Center

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NEEDED!

Improvements in:• Weather sensing (all scales)• Road condition sensing• Weather prediction• Data fusion• Information dissemination• Human factors• Benefits assessments


Passive surface sensor

Sub pavement probe

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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


• WRF model precipitation prediction• over Colorado for MDSS

Hurricane Isabel

September 2003

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• 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.

Land Surface Modeling

Volumetric soil moisture at 5 cm below the ground surface simulated by HRLDAS; valid at 1200 UTC 31 May 2002.

Soil Moisture


Feedback from snowfall needs

to be factored into next model run!

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Remote Sensing

Acquired: October 22, 2003VNIR – 15m

IA005

IA003

IA017

IA016

Des Moines, Iowa

•ASTER •AST07 (Surface Reflectance)•AST08 (Surface Temperature)•EROS Data Center

NASA and NOAA satellite

data:

• Road temperature

• Land surface character– Temperature

– Vegetation type

– Greenness fraction

– Albedo

– Snow cover

– Land use

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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


SSI Ice Camera

Vaisala Spectro

Yankee Total

Precipitation Sensor

Lincoln Lab video

Image Processing

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Extracting & derivingweather data fromvehicles:

• Air temperature• Road friction from ABS• Precip. (Y/N) from wipers• Precip. intensity (wiper

speed)• Radar (collision avoidance)• Air density

Vehicle Infrastructure Integration

45oF

44oF

43oF

45oF

44oF 38oF

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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-timeWeather Information

Here


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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

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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

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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)

Surface Transportation Weather: Assessment of Current Capabilities and Future Trends William Mahoney...

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