Applications of Environment Canada's Text-to-Voice System

APPLICATIONS OF ENVIRONMENT CANADA'S TEXT-TO-VOICE SYSTEM

Brian Bukoski Prairie Storm Prediction Centre 123 Main Street, Suite 150 Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada R3C 4W2

Since 1994, Environment Canada has relied upon a text-to-voice generating system called AVIPADS (Automated Voice Information Processing and Dissemination System) to deliver its forecasts, hourly weather reports, and a host of other voice products to its own network of ATADS (Automatic Telephone Answering Devices) and Weather Radios, in English and French. By using a vocabulary of almost 40,000 words and phrases recorded by a human to give a natural sounding product with proper inflections and intonations and by concatenating them into voice files, AVIPADS now records over almost all of the basic level of service that Environment Canada provides on its voice recording network in both official languages. Recent improvements to the system have included improved voice quality, an expanded vocabulary, larger dissemination capacity, and the inclusion of streaming technologies for Internet applications. The latest capability is the inclusion of warning discussions in the body of warning bulletins. This gives the bulletins more information and can help the listener in understanding the meteorological situation. AVIPADS now loads the majority of weather reports in all weather centres across Canada. The number and type of bulletins has expanded to include climate and almanac information, ultraviolet index information, air quality information, ice condition forecasts, and road condition bulletins. Without this text-to-voice technology in Environment Canada's Weather Service, the delivery of a base level of service could not be effectively performed.