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

  • Politicisation of US transportation funding
    October 13, 2015
    Andrew Bardin Williams looks at how a political stalemate and a series of short-term fixes is undermining America’s highway funding and curtailing long-term planning. It was a week before the deadline to renew funding for the Highway Trust Fund, and the clock was ticking.
    Read More
  • Regulating rural road use
    June 20, 2016
    David Crawford looks at problems facing indigenous communities and those unfamiliar with driving in rural areas. While it is well known that the fatality rate for road crashes in rural areas is higher than in towns and cities, some groups suffer far more than others. For instance, the rates of death and serious injury from vehicle accidents is much higher for American Indian and Alaska Native (AI and AN) populations living in rural tribal lands than for any of the country’s other ethnic populations. Crashes
    Read More
  • IBTTA 2014 Toll Excellence Award Winners announced
    June 20, 2014
    The International Bridge, Tunnel and Turnpike Association (IBTTA) has announced its winners of the 2014 Toll Excellence Award competition that recognises excellence, innovation and achievement in the tolling industry. Winning agencies and projects include:
    Read More
  • Analysis finds more than 2,275 Illinois bridges need structural repair
    April 25, 2014
    An analysis of the 2013 National Bridge Inventory database released this month by the US Department of Transportation (USDOT) shows cars, trucks and school buses cross Illinois's 2,275 structurally compromised bridges 13,000,000 times every day. The ARTBA analysis of the bridge data supplied by the states to the USDOT found: Illinois ranks ninth nationally in its number of structurally deficient bridges, and 28th in the percentage of its bridges that are classified as structurally deficient, at nine per cen
    Read More

Highlighted Content