New Zealand council deploys road-weather data service on alpine road

Queenstown Lakes District Council (QLDC), New Zealand, is set to receive accurate road-weather data for the alpine Crown Range road this winter following the signing of a five-year decision-support contract with MetService.
June 19, 2017 Read time: 2 mins


Queenstown Lakes District Council (QLDC), New Zealand, is set to receive accurate road-weather data for the alpine Crown Range road this winter following the signing of a five-year decision-support contract with MetService.

The new contract provides for the installation of a solar-powered automated weather station, a high-resolution road/sky camera, embedded road sensors and road-weather forecasting from MetService.

The Crown Range Road can be significantly impacted by severe weather events all year, with snow and ice making the road dangerous for users during the cooler months of May to September. Reduced visibility, strong winds and heavy rainfall events can also impact the road at any time of the year.

The new weather station and auxiliaries will deliver data on the prevailing real-time and expected conditions and the road’s environmental status and provide MetService’s road-weather forecasters with dynamic information, enabling them to prepare accurate guidance and decision-support insights for QLDC and road maintenance contractor Downer.

It will provide updates every minute and, together with the embedded sensors, deliver air and road temperatures, road status, dew point, humidity, wind direction and speed, rainfall and associated road weather data.

The data will be communicated via a cellular network into the MetService MetConnect weather dashboard and the new Foreca (MetService’s new Scandinavian road weather partner) high-resolution road visualisations that will model road conditions every 30 metres over the road’s entire 25 kilometres.

Under the contract, MetService will provide QLDC and Downer with onsite training  and will be responsible for the provision of data and the regular maintenance, upgrades and performance verifications of the equipment in the field.

Air Quality & Weather Systems

Related Content

  • Connected vehicle data promises advanced weather warning
    August 29, 2012
    Connected vehicle research and development is being aimed at improving driver safety and mobility, but is also promising advanced weather monitoring and warning systems. Sheldon Drobot reports. Over the last few years, the United States’ Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and Research & Innovative Technology Administration (RITA) have joined forces to promote safety, mobility and the environment through a new connected vehicle initiative. This aims to enable wireless communication between vehicles, infra
    Read More
  • Vaisala's RoadAI can optimise maintenance
    August 20, 2019
    Alerts for natural disasters are ones that most of us would rather do without, writes Adam Hill. But the ITS industry still needs help to deal with more common meteorological issues Google Maps has added SOS alerts to its service. For those of us more used to using the phone app to navigate from a metro station to an unfamiliar restaurant, this may seem extreme. But this is not what Google has in mind. Its SOS messages are for “hurricane forecast cones, earthquake shake-maps and flood forecasts”. That
    Read More
  • US States use technology and smart solutions to battle winter weather
    December 18, 2013
    US state Departments of Transportation (DOTs) are gearing up to meet the challenge of maintaining a high level of service during the winter without the benefit of additional financial resources. High-tech solutions like GPS guidance systems and low-tech products like potato juice are helping states to cut costs, improve efficiency, and minimise environmental impacts. The Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities uses a variety of advanced technologies to combat extreme winter weather and
    Read More
  • Integrated weather and traffic data aids winter maintenance
    October 10, 2012
    A US pooled fund study group has developed a system of software aimed at taking the concept of winter maintenance decision support to a new level – a scientific ‘one-stop-shop’ of weather and service performance data. This report is by Charles Chambers and Benjamin Hershey. With advancements in environmental technology come new systems that assist agencies with better management of winter roadway maintenance resources. In the late 1990s the US Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) began work developing a pr
    Read More

Highlighted Content