Best Practices for Road Weather Management Version 2.0
Title:
Classification of Road Slipperiness
Abstract:
A method of classification of different types of slipperiness on roads in Sweden is presented together with two examples of applications based on the method. As a number of different types of slipperiness may develop on roads in winter, each due to a specific combination of meteorological variables, road maintenance work can be a complicated task. By using the slipperiness classification, it is possible to survey road conditions in different areas and between different years to optimize winter road maintenance. The classification is performed with an expert system using meteorological data from the Swedish Road Weather Information System as input. The road condition is classified as either good or as one of ten different types of slipperiness on roads. Examples of new applications based on this method include (1) maps with road slipperiness distributions in Sweden. These maps increase the understanding of the problem and can be used as decision support when making traffic safety policies. (2) Evaluations of relationships between traffic accidents on slippery roads and winter road maintenance. As the most important purpose with winter road maintenence is to prevent traffic accidents on slippery roads, it is important to continuously evaluate the work to keep it as optimal as possible. An evaluation study performed in a southern part of Sweden showed that traffic accident rates are different for different types of road slipperiness.
Source(s):
10th Standing International Road WEather Conference (SIRWEC); University of Goteborg (Sweden)
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1017/S1350482700001407/abstract
Date: 2000
Author:
Norrman
Keywords:
Crashes
Safety
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