Web-based Road Monitoring

James Evans writes "The National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) are testing a Web-based system for weather forecasting and winter road treatment that could soon save lives, cut costs, and help keep millions of drivers on the move. Highway officials and road crews in Des Moines and Ames, Iowa, will test the Maintenance Decision Support System (MDSS) February 3 to April 4. The MDSS uses several computer models to project hour-by-hour weather and road conditions up to two days in advance, with an update every three hours."

Comments

Does anyone ever pay attention?

[packeteer]

Most of the time when people go driving they dont check the what the weather will be in two days.

Money well spent

[BlueRibbon]

For once, the US goverment spends some money in something useful to the society in general.
These are great measures against the deaths and injuries that every year happen in every road. That's something that the EU countries should copy from the US :)

Re:Money well spent

[topham]

Of course people could just learn how to drive.

(driving 10ft off the bumper of the car in front is dangerous, driving 10ft off the dumper of the car in front in snow is suicidal.).

I generally like free things

[altaic]

But it strikes me that cutting costs in this manner could hurt more than help. A lot of people watch TV news (I don't, but then, I have ./) for the weather report. There is a reason they leave the weather until the end (always pissed me off), and competition for the State would be harsh. Anyway, I'm not advocating TV broadcasting corps, 'cause they are money-grubbing sobs, but the economy they provide is not insignificant. Advertizements would cost more, since they'd have fewer viewers, and ads theoretically help drive the little guys in the economy.

I support their efforts, for a safer and more informed existance, but I hope they look at the ramifications before potentially displacing a market.

MDSS==RWIS?

[Cerlyn]

This article seems to call these systems Maintenance Decision Support Systems (MDSS). But the term I am used to seeing is Road Weather Information System (RWIS), which are used for the same reasons. I guess that RWIS's could be part of MDSS's; Pennsylvania (as well as other states) use theirs to help predict where to send snowplows, etc.

RWIS's are also often found online. Pennsylvania's RWIS is online here. You can click on any region, click on a station, and get live video, if the road is wet ("chemcial wet"==salted), what the temperature/wind speed is, etc. Pennsylvania also has self-salting bridges in a few spots; I don't know of any in other states, but it just might be me.

Ohio (not listed as an MDSS member) also has their own RWIS system (also called RWIS), although it presently covers only a few select areas.

I should note that even if you check a RWIS/MDSS, be aware that weather conditions can change quickly. The National Weather Service and the MDSS/RWIN you use might show only light snow, but don't be surprised if you have to seek shelter in a hotel overnight.

Re:congestion caused by too much information...

[slamb]

However, a system which aims to provide better information about traffic congestion to individual drivers can have the unexpected consequence of making congestion worse --- one study by Mahmassani and Jayakrishnan showed that when individuals use a best response strategy the performance of the system as a whole degrades if more than 25% of drivers have access to real time traffic information.

Interesting, but that sounds like a different situation. The traffic congestion is caused by drivers, so the "smart" drivers cause new congestion when they try to avoid old congestion. The drivers don't cause snow/ice, so I don't think the same problem will happen here.

Re:Iowa?

[Lord_Slepnir]

See that digital computer you're working on? That was developed by Ames Labratory and Iowa State University.

Being from the east coast, I'm sick of people with the attitude that the only thing that comes out of iowa is corn. Iowa has one of the highest SAT averages in the nation, and some of the best universities, such as Iowa State and University of Iowa. Beleive it or not, there is a world outside of California, New York, and Philadelphia.

And now for the weather report...

[hubbabubba]

Our local weather forecasters use "sophisticated computer models" to predict the weather, too, and it doesn't seem to do them much good. They only get it right about half the time. If road maintenance services were tied to their predictions, we'd be in a world of hurt. No matter how fancy your models may be, nothing beats the old-fashioned -- "hey look, it's snowing outside, better dispatch the plows." Or for a somewhat more predictive approach -- "hey look, the doppler says it's raining an hour upwind from here and the temp is below freezing! Better salt the roads."