Skip to main content

Accurate roadside visibility monitoring

The SWS-050 visibility sensor for roadside monitoring developed by UK company Biral measures local weather conditions and instantly relays this information to road users via electronic signage, warning drivers of unexpected hazards such as fog patches and enabling rapid response by authorities in the event of dangerous conditions. With a measurement range of 10 metres to 40 kilometres, the SWS-050 operates in temperatures ranging from -40ºC to 60ºC and is unaffected by local lights or reflections. The devic
May 31, 2013 Read time: 2 mins
Biral SWS-050 roadside visibility sensor
The SWS-050 visibility sensor for roadside monitoring developed by UK company 7359 Biral measures local weather conditions and instantly relays this information to road users via electronic signage, warning drivers of unexpected hazards such as fog patches and enabling rapid response by authorities in the event of dangerous conditions.

With a measurement range of 10 metres to 40 kilometres, the SWS-050 operates in temperatures ranging from -40ºC to 60ºC and is unaffected by local lights or reflections. The device is provided with heated hoods and window heaters, allowing continued operation in blizzard conditions and preventing condensation forming on the optical surfaces. 

The sensor is a single lightweight unit constructed of high-grade aluminium, robust enough to easily withstand aggressive roadside conditions for many years with minimal maintenance. Typically installed within three metres of the roadside, the SWS-050 provides digital data that integrates easily into any control system, allowing authorities to make timely traffic and road management decisions.  The forward scatter design technology, infra-red light source and intelligent sensing technology gives the SWS-050 proven accuracy, reliability and repeatability.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Toll performance exceeds expectations, improves travel times
    January 30, 2012
    Jean Harito, Attica Tollway Operations Authority and Steve Morello, Egis Projects describe how looking to exceed contractual obligations makes good operational and business sense. The Attica Tollway is a modern, 65km, access-controlled urban motorway with three lanes in each direction. It constitutes the ring road around the extensive metropolitan area of the Greek capital, Athens, and forms the backbone of the entire road network in the Attica region. By ensuring freeflow operating conditions, the Attica T
  • Avoiding the call of the wild
    June 29, 2018
    Hitting an animal on a rural road can be fatal for all parties involved – but detecting and avoiding them requires clever technology. Andrew Williams carefully scans the horizon for details. Wildlife-vehicle collisions are an ever-present threat in rural areas around the world, and there is certainly nothing funny about suddenly finding an angry moose in your headlights on a sharp bend. A variety of detection and avoidance systems are currently in use or under development to help prevent your vehicle being
  • Navtech Radar shows off ClearWay
    December 7, 2021
    Navtech Radar is attending ITS America 2021 for the first time to share how its ClearWay safety solution is making the world’s roads safer.
  • GPS delivers accurate journey time data for UTC
    January 27, 2012
    A new solution developed as a consequence of the UK's Freeflow project fuses GPS and UTC loop data to give more accurate predictions of journey times, benefting network managers and travellers alike. By Matt Cowley and Gareth Jones, Trakm8 and John Polak and Rajesh Krishnan, Imperial College London