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Road Weather Information System Environmental Sensor Station Siting Guidelines

This document provides guidelines for selecting and installing environmental sensor stations (ESS) for road weather monitoring, detection, and prediction. It includes guidance on site requirements, sensor categories, network planning, and metadata considerations.

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Road Weather Information System Environmental Sensor Station Siting Guidelines

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  1. Road Weather Information System Environmental Sensor Station Siting Guidelines MDSS Stakeholder Meeting Boulder, CO October 21, 2005 Ed Boselly Weather Solutions Group Olympia, WA with help from Paul Pisano, FHWA and Lee Smithson, SICOP WSG Oct 2005

  2. WSG Oct 2005

  3. Acknowledgements • SAIC: • John Manfredi, Tom Walters, Greg Wilke, Tom Incrocci • Meridian Environmental Technology, Inc. • Leon Osborne, Bob Hart • T & S Diversified Inc. • Tom Schmitt • Many Interviewees WSG Oct 2005

  4. Defines RWIS WSG Oct 2005

  5. Purpose of the Project • Provide information on the selection & installation of environmental sensor station (ESS) equipment & instrumentation • Help ensure that the data adequately support the specified purposes of the observing site • Educate on the importance of participating in the greater community and on issues such as the need for accurate metadata WSG Oct 2005

  6. RWIS/ESS Applications WSG Oct 2005

  7. Siting Guidelines Characteristics • Provide siting criteria that satisfy as many road weather monitoring, detection, & prediction requirements as possible • Criteria are based on an analysis of other published research & interviews with state DOT experts, equipment suppliers & consultants • Guidelines are a set of recommendations & are not mandates or standards WSG Oct 2005

  8. ESS Sensor Categories WSG Oct 2005

  9. Planning the ESS Network • How will the road weather information be used, and who will use it? • Will the ESS be used to measure a site-specific condition or provide information that represents conditions across a general area? • What needs to be measured at each installation? • What other sources of weather and pavement data are available to share and improve the availability of data to other partner agencies WSG Oct 2005

  10. Examples of ESS Sensors WSG Oct 2005

  11. Regional Site Requirements • Support broad, real-time monitoring of weather and road conditions • Provide data to improve the accuracy of surface transportation specific forecasts • Provide ground truth to evaluate accuracy • Anticipate changes in road weather from upstream locations WSG Oct 2005

  12. Local Site Requirements • Observations used to assist in issuing advisories & short term forecasting • Observed conditions may be locally worse, but may be representative of other similar segments or structures • Highlights specific problems, typically called trouble spots WSG Oct 2005

  13. Additional Siting Tools • Thermal mapping • Better defines thermal characteristics • Help identify similar areas • Optimize the number of ESS to be installed • Portable sensor systems • Help identify potential permanent ESS sites • Do not include sensors requiring implanting in/below pavement WSG Oct 2005

  14. Typical Locations of Tower-Based Sensors WSG Oct 2005

  15. ESS Location Relative to Roadway WSG Oct 2005

  16. Other Considerations • Electrical power availability • Communications availability • Roadside environment WSG Oct 2005

  17. Typical Pavement Sensor Siting WSG Oct 2005

  18. Optional Considerations WSG Oct 2005

  19. Aside (mine) – Also Consider: • Installing remote sensor systems in the pavement using wireless communications to the ESS RPU • Repeater sites to solve communications problems • Can solve line-of-site problems • Can get data into a backbone system WSG Oct 2005

  20. Siting Metadata • Metadata: “data about data” • Metadata are used to document the characteristics of each sensor and its siting to provide users an understanding of what the sensor data really represent • Standards have been developed for some geospatial metadata, but not for RWIS ESS location and sensor metadata WSG Oct 2005

  21. Conclusion • Collection of road weather information can provide decision support to transportation managers & contribute to more accurate road weather forecasts • Siting recommendations are designed to satisfy as many road weather monitoring, detecting and predicting requirements as possible • Siting recommendations encourage uniformity in siting, application and participation in the greater community WSG Oct 2005

  22. Conclusion (cont.) • Siting decisions are best made by a team of transportation operations, road maintenance, and weather experts. WSG Oct 2005

  23. Recommendation (Mine) Hire a weather expert experienced in RWIS ESS siting  WSG Oct 2005

  24. Questions? WSG Oct 2005

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