Road safety award for Idaho Transportation Department and Vaisala

Vaisala's collaboration with the Idaho Transportation Department has been recognised by the US Road Safety Foundation and Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) as winners of the biennial National Roadway Safety Awards. The award winners were chosen for reducing fatalities and injuries on roadways through excellence and innovation in operations, planning, and design. The Idaho Transportation Department, using Vaisala's pavement sensors that calculate grip or friction values, found that this value can als
December 3, 2013 Read time: 2 mins
144 Vaisala's collaboration with the 7477 Idaho Transportation Department has been recognised by the US 776 Road Safety Foundation and 831 Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) as winners of the biennial National Roadway Safety Awards. The award winners were chosen for reducing fatalities and injuries on roadways through excellence and innovation in operations, planning, and design.
 
The Idaho Transportation Department, using Vaisala's pavement sensors that calculate grip or friction values, found that this value can also be used to measure the success of the department's winter road maintenance operations.  Idaho personnel developed several benchmark indexes that calculated operational performance, and were able to normalise any variance caused by storms and seasons.

Vaisala supported the development by integrating the indexes into their RoadDSS Navigator software which allows for quick review of the indexes alongside other decision-making tools.
 
Paul Bridge, offering manager and meteorologist for Vaisala Roads, says: "We are very proud to hear that our technology has been acknowledged as the most innovative in the industry. This is very much our goal with regards to providing information services; working with our client to develop additional value from our sensing technology. You know it's a winner when our client refers to us as their partner."
 
Vaisala's road weather system provides real value to winter maintenance operations in Idaho. "We had a pretty significant year, this year (2012-13) and preliminary estimates show that we have had a 10-20 per cent reduction in our US$7million dollar chemical usage budget," says Dennis Jensen, mobility services-winter maintenance coordinator, Idaho Transportation Department.
Air Quality & Weather Systems

Related Content

  • IBTTA’s roll-call of excellence
    September 2, 2022
    Winners of the IBTTA’s Toll Excellence Awards will be presented with their trophies during the 90th Annual Meeting & Exhibition in Austin, Texas
    Read More
  • The growth of ITS service solutions providers
    July 26, 2012
    Econolite's new subsidiary Aegis ITS has been set up to address the increasingly complex and exacting needs of agencies in the ITS sector. Chief Operating Officer Doug Terry talks about the evolution to service solution provider. A few very notable and honourable exceptions notwithstanding, it is these days becoming increasingly rare to find a public agency which develops its own traffic management systems. Indeed, most now rely on specialist manufacturers and suppliers to fulfil their needs. This has the h
    Read More
  • Reducing incident clear up times, saving money
    January 24, 2012
    In 2007 in Atlanta, Georgia, it took over four hours to open the road after a major commercial vehicle incident. Not any more. Four years ago the Texas Transportation Institute (TTI) cited Atlanta, Georgia as the third-most congested city in the United States. Each traveller in metro Atlanta lost an incredible 57 hours a year to traffic delays, wasting 40 gallons of fuel while sitting in traffic. In 2007, it took nearly four and a half hours to open travel lanes after an average tractor-trailer incident. Th
    Read More
  • The case for tolling the Interstates
    April 20, 2012
    Speaking at an event organised by the IBTTA last week to an audience of federal and state transportation officials, policy experts, financial analysts, and representatives from engineering firms, technology companies, and transportation facility operators, Ed Regan of Wilbur Smith Associates articulated a clear case for giving states flexibility to toll existing interstate highways.
    Read More

Highlighted Content