Abstract
Road conditions during the winter months in Nordic countries can be highly unstable. Slippery roads combined with heavy haul traffic and ordinary road users can create dangerous, even lethal, situations if road maintenance is unsuccessful. Accidents and critical road conditions may lead to blocked roads, putting strain on a limited number of main roads in many regions, and may in the worst case isolate areas entirely. Using sensors in winter road assessment has been a popular topic for over 20 years. However, with today’s developments connected to smaller and cheaper sensors, new opportunities are presenting themselves. In this study, we performed preliminary experiments on a variety of sensors, both commercial and experimental, to evaluate their benefits in possible hybrid sensor technology, which can give a more complete characterization of the road surface than what is possible from just one sensor. From the collected data and visual analysis of the results, the idea of a hybrid sensor seems promising when considering the differences in the tested sensors and how they may complement each other.
Highlights
Transportation of raw material, goods, and people is a constantly growing factor in the Nordic countries
Research shows that winter road maintenance is crucial to maintain safe roads [2]
Critical road conditions can lead to closed roads, which again can lead to areas being isolated over prolonged periods of time
Summary
Transportation of raw material, goods, and people is a constantly growing factor in the Nordic countries. With this growth, a significant increase in semitrailers for long haul has been observed where research states that many of them are a safety risk on slippery winter roads [1]. To meet the current and future industry with accessible and, more importantly, safe roads, the pressure on successful winter road maintenance is high. Research shows that winter road maintenance is crucial to maintain safe roads [2]. Knowing when and where critical conditions occur, improving risk assessment, can increase the efficiency of maintenance personnel (saving money), and can be used to warn road users of potential risks (increasing safety). Critical road conditions can lead to closed roads, which again can lead to areas being isolated over prolonged periods of time
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