Geospatial Weather Decision Support for Transportation Applications

Weather is a major factor in surface transportation – it impacts traffic flow and patterns, and is often a precursor to accidents, a significant portion of which cause injury or death. Integration of current and forecast weather information into ITS applications, including 511 systems, can provide transportation managers with the information they need to make better decisions and provide alerts that can reduce congestion while improving safety. Improved routing, logistics coordination, maintenance operations and efficiencies for the transport of materials can also be gained through a better understanding of weather issues that affect the transportation network.

The merge of weather information with Geographic Information System (GIS) technology provides new and exciting capabilities now being realized by the transportation industry to mitigate weather-related risks through operational decision support. Telvent DTN has developed unique capabilities to merge weather information with non-weather assets, both stationary and mobile, to provide unparalleled weather risk monitoring and location-based alerting.

Weather parameters that are relevant to specific business requirements are continuously monitored and compared to customer asset locations. Automated alerts are generated when critical weather thresholds are exceeded at the identified asset locations. These real-time location-based alerts can provide dramatically enhanced public safety, improved logistics support, and provide a superior advantage in operating business efficiencies relating to weather conditions. This advanced capability provides effective, accurate and precise weather decision support for many varied transportation applications.

Covered in this paper will be the methodology, datasets (both stationary and mobile) and benefits behind this geospatial decision support for various transportation applications. Also included will be a demonstration of how this technology was utilized in conjunction with RWIS information from Clarus in the NY511 traveler information system.