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

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Title:

XRWIS: A New Paradigm for Winter Road Maintenance

Abstract:

XRWIS is the NeXt Generation Road Weather Information System that forecasts for every 20 metres around each salting route using a geographical information system, sky-view factor analysis and mesoscale weather forecasts. Treatment requirements for each salting route are then visualised in simple 'traffic-light' style colours and a map is displayed on the internet. In a recent trial in Devon in England, for 152 nights in the winter of 2004/05, the XRWIS energy balance model 'IceMiser' was run for more than 12,000 locations around 6 salting routes compared to just one forecast site that is normally used. If the XRWIS system had been operational up to 78 salting runs on those six salting routes could have been saved.

Source(s):

13th Standing International Road WEather Conference (SIRWEC); Entice Technology Limited and University of Birmingham (United Kingdom)

Date: 2006

Author:

Thornes, Chapman, White

Keywords:


Weather information
Decision support
Forecast/Prediction
Internet/web
Winter maintenance
Productivity
Costs

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