Road Weather Management Program
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Best Practices for Road Weather Management Version 2.0

Title:

Recommendations for Roadway Weather Information System (RWIS) Expansion for the State of Ohio

Abstract:

Recommendations for a statewide expansion of Ohio's RWIS network are made. Factors used to determine optimal RWIS station deployment included distance between existing RWIS stations in Ohio and surrounding states, declared snow days, and annual snowfall amounts in Ohio. At a minimum, 14 additional RWIS stations around the state, one per un-served district or two in northern districts, should be sufficient to meet basic statewide weather prediction and monitoring needs. More may be deployed to achieve a denser coverage, especially if traffic speed is reported by the system and used as a performance measure. Installations should be at locations with typical rather than extreme conditions. The characteristics of an ideal RWIS station include pavement temperature sensors, atmospheric weather sensors, accurate forecasting, video, and traffic volume and speed information. The benefit of the RWIS network will come only if anti-icing methods are diligently applied and performance measures for winter operations built into the maintenance system.

Source(s):

83rd Transportation Research Board (TRB) Annual Meeting, Ohio . For an electronic copy of this resource, please direct your request to WeatherFeedback@dot.gov.

Date: 2004

Author:

Zwahlen, Russ, Vatan

Keywords:


Weather information
Environmental Sensor Station (ESS)
Snow
Ice/Frost
Traveler information
Dynamic message sign (DMS)
Anti-icing/deicing
Decision support
Costs
Forecast/Prediction

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