The Department of Transportation’s Federal Highway Administration is actively involved in promoting roadway safety and efficiency through numerous research and educational outreach programs. This paper will serve as a high-level overview of the various programs managed by the Office of Transportation Operations, Road Weather Management Program (RWMP).

The RWMP is currently involved in several national programs. Each of these programs has a goal of helping to improve surface transportation operations in inclement weather through better management of resources and by promoting education. Examples of these programs include the national 511 Initiative, which is an automated phone system that is available in many states that provides updated traffic congestion, work zone, and road weather information. The “Maintenance Decision Support System” program leverages the expertise from five national laboratories to prototype a decision support tool to assist state department of transportation road maintainers to determine when and where to deploy resources during winter storms. The RWMP has compiled best practice case studies from across the country as an outreach and education exercise for traffic managers, emergency managers, and maintenance managers. These data will be made available to interested parties so that the management community as a whole will be able to learn from each other. Finally, the FHWA is working with traffic and emergency management officials to see that hurricane evacuation strategies continue to evolve.

More highly detailed summaries about some of these initiatives may be found in reports to be presented in the surface transportation session.