Vaisala says it’s time to take road weather seriously

“It is time to take road weather seriously,” is how Vaisala’s Danny Johns puts the company’s message to this week’s ITS World Congress delegates, and the wider world. While the monitoring of winter weather is well established, wind, rain and poor visibility can occur at any time of the year and have significant impacts on traffic flows and crash statistics. “We are now mapping road networks to identify weather-sensitive areas to best locate road weather stations – it doesn’t take a lot of rain or wind to
October 12, 2016 Read time: 2 mins
Danny Johns of Vaisala with the road weather system
“It is time to take road weather seriously,” is how 144 Vaisala’s Danny Johns puts the company’s message to this week’s ITS World Congress delegates, and the wider world.

While the monitoring of winter weather is well established, wind, rain and poor visibility can occur at any time of the year and have significant impacts on traffic flows and crash statistics.

“We are now mapping road networks to identify weather-sensitive areas to best locate road weather stations – it doesn’t take a lot of rain or wind to cause an increase in incidents,” said Johns.

Vaisala’s RWS 200 road weather station, displayed on the company’s stand, is fitted with three lasers to measure water, ice and snow and then calculate the available grip. When the grip level falls below a pre-set level, it will either send an alert to the traffic monitoring centre or, particularly in rural locations, automatically activate variable message or speed signs.

“We have had examples of significant decreases in crashes after road weather monitoring stations have been installed,” Johns said.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Smartphone solution for parking performance
    March 31, 2017
    Automated parking offers optimised space utilisation and fewer damage complaints as David Crawford discovers. As cars become smarter, technology designed to make parking them more straightforward is developing in parallel. In turn, it is becoming clear that the places where vehicles spend much of their time will need to respond – more comprehensively than by supporting established aids such as smartphone-based parking location and reservation, or payment for time used.
    Read More
  • Smartphone solution for parking performance
    March 31, 2017
    Automated parking offers optimised space utilisation and fewer damage complaints as David Crawford discovers. As cars become smarter, technology designed to make parking them more straightforward is developing in parallel. In turn, it is becoming clear that the places where vehicles spend much of their time will need to respond – more comprehensively than by supporting established aids such as smartphone-based parking location and reservation, or payment for time used.
    Read More
  • On a WIM – a global view of weigh in motion
    May 25, 2016
    Q-Free’s Andrew Lees looks at regional characteristics and technology trends in the global Weigh-In-Motion market. The principles of Weigh-In-Motion (WIM) are well established. Data derived from vehicles passing over in-ground sensors can be interpreted for vehicle classification (axle counts and spacing) and positive identification (especially when linked to image capture) applications as well as to derive individual axle and gross vehicle weight (GVW).
    Read More
  • Debating road user charging systems
    January 26, 2012
    Are pre-launch trials of charging systems the way to improve public acceptance? Or is the real key a more robust political attitude? Here, leading system suppliers discuss the issue. The use of distance-based Road User Charging (RUC) is now well established, at least for heavy goods vehicles on strategic roads. However demand management for all vehicles, whether a distance-based charge or some form of cordon scheme, has yet to make significant progress. This is in spite of the logic and equity of RUC being
    Read More

Highlighted Content