2017 Road Weather Management Performance Measures Update

Executive Summary

More than a decade ago, the Federal Highway Administration's (FHWA) Road Weather Management Program (RWMP) established a set of performance measures to assess its program effectiveness in improving the performance of the transportation system during adverse weather conditions. Since then, assessments of the performance measures have been completed and documented in 2009, 2012, and 2015. Over the years, the program has aimed to maintain overall consistency in the types of performance measures to allow for a more complete, long-term assessment of a program. However, additional performance measures were added in 2015 to address some gaps due to changes in program objectives and recent advances in road weather management capability and technology. As a result, 27 performance measures were evaluated in 2015. This update maintained the same performance measures to assess the RWMP's success in meeting its programmatic objectives. The current objectives that guide the RWMP's activities and direction include:

• Build and sustain relationships with multi-disciplinary partners to expand road weather management deployments.
• Ensure road weather management investments improve highway performance.
• Advance the transportation, weather, and research communities' use of and reliance on fixed and mobile road weather observations.
• Advance the state of the art for mobile sensing and integrating vehicle data into road weather applications.
• Advance the state of the practice by promoting tailored management strategies for different regions.
• Improve integration of weather-related decision-support technologies into traffic operations and maintenance procedures.
• Advance the state of the practice by raising road weather management capabilities and awareness across the transportation and weather communities.
• Increase engagement of the operations community with the climate change and sustainability communities.

Assessing performance measures allows the RWMP to evaluate its progress, gather information regarding the state of the practice and national capabilities in road weather management, and identify any areas that need more focus, support, or outreach. The resulting report presents the progress, successes, and overall vision of the RWMP and serves as a potential resource and communication product to further advance the importance and widespread implementation of road weather technologies.

In the past, performance measure updates simply reported on each performance measure individually. For this update, the performance measures were classified into at least one of four categories, as described below, in order to convey a general and more concise evaluation of the RWMP's progress and success.

ROAD WEATHER MANAGEMENT IMPACTS

This report describes the recent practices and performance measures related to mitigating the mobility, safety, economic, and productivity impacts of adverse weather conditions. The study team found that, while there is an enhanced level of awareness and interest in understanding the performance of transportations systems under adverse weather and the effects of road weather management strategies, State departments of transportation (DOTs) are still figuring out how best to collect and report this information. Some examples include publishing winter maintenance reports, providing online dashboards, calculating a winter severity index, and developing a process for evaluating the return on investment of road weather strategies.

As expected, snow and ice removal expenditures and salt usage fluctuate due in large part to the natural, unpredictable variation in weather conditions. Even so, a few States have demonstrated promising examples of how nationwide salt usage and related removal expenditures can be better controlled as a result of innovative road weather management strategies such as Road Weather Information System (RWIS) installations, dashboards, and salt management plans. Reducing the delays experienced by travelers driving in inclement weather conditions is a key element of system performance improvement targeted by the RWMP. Since the last performance measures update, two additional noteworthy delay-reducing strategies were identified as being used by States: Michigan's Weather Responsive Traveler Information System, Wx-TINFO, and Utah's Pathfinder Team. Finally, while the adverse weather crash trend has been downward over the last 15 years, it is hard to attribute them directly to a particular road weather management strategy.

APPLICATION OF ROAD WEATHER MANAGEMENT TOOLS AND TECHNOLOGIES

The first set of road weather management tools examined pertains to the collection of fixed and mobile road weather observation data, which can be made available in real-time or archived. The number of State DOTs using such systems since the previous report has decreased for some tools, but increased for the majority of tools assessed, suggesting an overall slight improvement in this objective.

The research ream also tracked the use of vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) applications, infrastructure-to-vehicle (I2V) applications, and connected vehicle technologies. State DOTs are in the early stages of developing applications or tools that leverage I2V or V2I connectivity, with only 17 percent of agencies reporting having done so.

The percentage of State DOTs with Maintenance Decision Support System (MDSS) deployments has shown a slight decrease, and there was an increase in the number of States saying that they do not need an MDSS. Ninety-five percent of State DOT survey respondents either did not use or were not aware of whether their agency used weather-responsive analysis, modeling, and simulation tools.

The RWMP encourages State DOTs to create a customized approach to road weather management that accounts for the local context (e.g., road conditions, forecasts, etc.). When assessing road weather management performance from this angle, it is clear that, nationwide, State DOTs are making improvements. More agencies are deploying road weather information dissemination strategies, such as publicizing atmospheric weather and road condition information on dynamic messaging signs, as well as road condition information on agency-hosted social media or mobile applications. There is also a reported increase in the number of States deploying more automated, innovative traffic control strategies for ramp meters, traffic signal timing, and variable speed limits.

Sustainability for road weather management has largely been restricted to having a snow and ice removal policy. Since the last update, the percentage of agencies reporting they have a dedicated road weather management program has not grown, although the percentage of agencies implementing plans for road weather management infrastructure and developing various processes for extreme weather has increased.

ROAD WEATHER MANAGEMENT CAPACITY BUILDING

This report contains an evaluation of how the RWMP is providing stakeholders with flexible, accessible learning and growth opportunities through training, technical assistance, and resources. Overall, participation in RWMP stakeholder meetings has been consistent and strong since the last update. The number of agencies participating in RWMP Regional Roundtables (webinars) has also increased. Unfortunately, the Consortium for ITS Training and Education (CITE) reported a decline in registration for RWMP-related online courses.

Developed in 2014, FHWA's Road Weather Management Capability Maturity Framework (CMF) evaluation model and tool prompts agencies to select actions and develop plans for raising their RWM capabilities based on an evaluation of the State's current capabilities. At the time this report was written, 10 States and regions have already conducted Road Weather Management CMF workshops and identified capability improvement actions.

The RWMP informs and educates various stakeholders through public meetings, conferences, and other events. From 2015 to mid-2017, representatives from the RWMP have attended or presented at more than 20 events throughout the country and abroad.

PARTNERSHIPS AND STAKEHOLDER COLLABORATION

The RWMP is collaborating and partnering with public and private stakeholders through various activities. Information sharing and collaboration are fundamental to road weather management implementation and success. One way RWMP is achieving this is by partnering with State and local transportation agencies to advance various research and development (R&D) projects, such as Pathfinder, Road Weather Management CMF, Weather Data Environment, and the Integrated Mobile Observations Program. Overall, the number of States that are conducting at least one R&D activity has increased by more than 50 percent from the last performance measure update.

The RWMP also supports the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) by encouraging State DOTs to share data and ensure data quality by integrating quality checking algorithms into their systems. Participation in NOAA's Meteorological Assimilation Data Ingest System (MADIS) program is tracked by the number of State DOTs that have signed a data sharing agreement. From 2016 to 2017, the participation of State DOTs has increased by 75 percent. The level of coordination between State DOTs and the National Weather Service has also greatly increased since the last assessment.

CONCLUSIONS

Overall, performance measurement continues to be important for the RWMP. These performance assessments provide direction for the program as they work to advance road weather strategies. Based on the results of this 2017 update, the following recommendations are identified for consideration by the RWMP:

• Create a national database of State DOT performance measures and reports.
• Re-engage in MDSS outreach.
• Continue to showcase value of V2I application deployment.
• Develop a plan for accelerating awareness and deployment of weather-responsive traffic analysis tools.
• Support Weather Savvy Roads (WSR) interest and implementation plans.

The current update of the performance measures continues to show an engaged stakeholder community, new and strengthened partnerships, and sustained use of available technologies for road weather management. Interest among the stakeholder community in performance measurement, V2I deployment, and WSR offers new opportunities for the program to engage and encourage new State DOTs and partners to be part of these national road weather management activities.