Best Practices for Road Condition Reporting Systems

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U.S. Department of Transportation
Federal Highway Administration
Office of Operations
1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE
Washington, DC 20590
www.ops.fhwa.dot.gov

Publication #: FHWA-HOP-14-023

September 2014

Synthesis Report

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Notice

This document is disseminated under the sponsorship of the United States Department of Transportation in the interest of information exchange. The United States Government assumes no liability for its contents or use thereof. This report does not constitute a standard, specification, or regulation.

The United States Government does not endorse products or manufacturers. Trade and manufacturers' names appear in this report only because they are considered essential to the object of the document.

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The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) provides high-quality information to serve Government, industry, and the public in a manner that promotes public understanding. Standards and policies are used to ensure and maximize the quality, objectivity, utility, and integrity of its information. FHWA periodically reviews quality issues and adjusts its programs and processes to ensure continuous quality improvement.

Cover and chapter page photos purchased from Shutterstock.com.

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Technical Report Documentation Page

1. Report No FHWA-HOP-14-023	2. Government Accession No.		3. Recipient's Catalog No.
4. Title and Subtitle Best Practices for Road Condition Reporting Systems: Synthesis Report			5. Report Date September 2014
			6. Performing Organization Code
7. Author(s) Dean Deeter, Ginny Crowson, Tina Roelofs (Athey Creek); Jeremy Schroeder, Deepak Gopalakrishna (Battelle)			8. Performing Organization Report No.
9. Performing Organization Name and Address Battelle 505 King Avenue Columbus, OH 43201 Athey Creek Consultants 2610 Lexington Terrace West Linn, Oregon 97068			10. Work Unit No. (TRAIS)
			11. Contract or Grant No. DTFH61-12-D-00046.
12. Sponsoring Agency Name and Address Federal Highway Administration Office of Operations (HOP) 1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE Washington, DC 20590			13. Type of Report and Period Covered
			14. Sponsoring Agency Code
15. Supplementary Notes Project performed in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration and Transportation Management Center (TMC) Pooled Fund Study (PFS). Jimmy Chu (Task Manager)
16. Abstract Often, the center of an agency's traveler information system is a Road Condition Reporting System (RCRS). The RCRS is frequently the focal point, populated by manual and automated data and information feeds, supplying information to various information dissemination mechanisms. While the potential benefits of an RCRS are obvious, there are also costs of associated with the development, management, and support of the software system as well as costs associated with the operator time to perform entry. The benefits and costs are impacted by many institutional and technical issues that operations managers must face. This report presents a synthesis of current industry practices regarding the design, development, operation, maintenance, and use of RCRSs. This report compiles information received through a survey and interviews with transportation agencies throughout North America to understand the uses of RCRSs and to identify industry practices that have delivered benefits to the agencies operating RCRSs. A total of 49 Current RCRS Industry Practices, 7 Best Practices, and 3 Emerging Best Practices are described in this report.
17. Key Word Road condition reporting systems, RCRS		18. Distribution Statement No restrictions. This document is available to the public.
19. Security Classif. (of this report)	20. Security Classif. (of this page)		21. No. of Pages 104	22. Price

Preface

We would like to acknowledge the following Transportation Management Center Pooled-Fund Study (TMC PFS) members for their contributions, support and technical guidance during this project.

Paul Keltner Wisconsin DOT
Jeff Galas Illinois DOT
Ron Fuessel Texas DOT
Davis Behzadpour Kansas DOT
Vinh Dang Washington State DOT

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

• Executive Summary
• Chapter 1. Introduction and Background
  • Introduction to the Project
  • Background of RCRS
  • Industry Trends and Challenges Impacting RCRS Use
  • Purpose and Organization of this Document
• Chapter 2. Current Industry Practices
  • Practices for Construction / Roadwork Information Assembly
  • Practices for Incident / Event Information Assembly
  • Practices for Road Weather Information Assembly
  • Practices for Travel Time Information Assembly
  • Practices for Transit Information Assembly
  • Practices for Regional Integration and Interoperability
  • Practices for Data Reliability, Accuracy, and Timeliness
  • Practices for Funding and Managing Development and System Changes
  • Practices for Balancing Possible and Practicable
• Chapter 3. Best Practices
  • Best Practice #1: Automated Ingest of Law Enforcement CAD Data
  • Best Practice #2: Combining RCRS Entry with Other Activities
  • Best Practice #3: RCRS Ingest of Weather Data
  • Best Practice #4: Integrating Lane Closure Databases into RCRS
  • Best Practice #5: RCRS Events Trigger of Field Device Messages
  • Best Practice #6: Generating Automated Performance Measure Data
  • Best Practice #7: Development and Operation Collaboration
• Chapter 4. Emerging Best Practices
  • Emerging Best Practice #1: Citizen Reporting into RCRS
  • Emerging Best Practice #2: Integrating Transit Data into the RCRS
  • Emerging Best Practice #3: Integration of Third Party Data
• Chapter 5. Benefits and Conclusions
  • Overall Benefits
  • Benefits of Industry Practices Described in This Document
  • Conclusions
• Appendix A - Survey Results
• Appendix B - Survey Text
• Appendix C - Interview Contacts

List of Figures

• Figure 1. Illustration of a Conceptual RCRS
• Figure 2. Responses for Question 3: What RCRS is your agency using?
• Figure 3. Responses for Question 4: How long has your agency operated a RCRS?
• Figure 4. Responses for Question 5: Have you made any significant changes to your RCRS since you initially launched it?
• Figure 5. Responses for Question 6: What data is received by your agency's RCRS?
• Figure 6. Idaho Transportation Department RWIS Visualization
• Figure 7. Iowa DOT's Illustration of How Web Visitors can View the Impacts of Different Events by Observing the Icons
• Figure 8. Example of Icon

List of Tables

• Table 1. Other Data Received by RCRS
• Table 2. Current Industry Practices Discussed in this Chapter
• Table 3. Survey Responses Describing Entry Processes for Roadwork/Construction
• Table 4. Survey Responses Describing Entry Processes for Incidents
• Table 5. Survey Responses Describing Entry Processes for Roadway Weather Observations
• Table 6. Typical Road Weather Reports from Manual or In-vehicle Observations and Typical Reports from RWIS Environmental Sensors
• Table 7. Survey Responses Describing Entry Processes for Data Received by RCRS
• Table 8. Identified Best Practices Discussed in this Chapter
• Table 9. Identified Emerging Best Practices Discussed in this Chapter