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Best Practices for Road Weather Management Version 2.0

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Title:

Friction as a Tool for Winter Maintenance

Abstract:

Measurements of road surface temperatures have been conducted for at least twenty years by means of Road Weather Information Systems (RWIS). More recently, truck mounted sensors have been tested to determine their effectiveness. While these must still be considered experimental, their use has been enthusiastically greeted by some winter maintenance personnel, as providing real time on-the-spot information that can be of considerable use to operators. Unfortunately, temperature alone does not tell the whole story of the condition of a road surface. A key component is the road surface friction. However, before friction measurements can be used as an objective, quantitative measure of road surface condition, a number of issues have to be addressed. The purpose of this paper is to raise and address some of these critical issues.

Source(s):

1998 Transportation Conference, University of Iowa

https://ops.fhwa.dot.gov/weather/Publications/Publications/049.pdf

Date: 1998

Author:

Nixon

Keywords:


Pavement condition
Pavement friction

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