Weather and Friction Data Collection for Winter Road Performance Evaluation

TLDR: In this article, the authors constructed a Winter Road Management System as part of technological development contributing to improvements in the efficiency, accuracy, and transparency of winter road management by providing weather forecasts, road-surface forecasts, and real-time friction data to road administrators and operators.

Abstract: In this project, the authors constructed a Winter Road Management System as part of technological development contributing to improvements in the efficiency, accuracy, and transparency of winter road management by providing weather forecasts, road-surface forecasts, and real-time friction data to road administrators and operators. At the same time, in this system a database linked to the data and combined with winter maintenance data and digital road maps was constructed to display the data on geographic information system maps and also to conduct winter road performance evaluation by using the accumulated data. As a result, it is possible to evaluate the judgment, results, and achievements of winter road management using more objective and transparent methods, which is expected to contribute to more efficient plan-do-check- action cycle-based management. In this report, the authors used the collected and accumulated data by the system to carry out a series of basic analyses on temporal and spatial changes in winter road performance as a function of meteorological variation and road characteristics, with a case study on the 45-km section of National Highway 230 in the Sapporo area. This paper describes a summary of the system development to date, the usability of accumulated data for winter performance evaluation, and future prospects to promote more effective and efficient winter road management.