Chapter 25 - Advances in sustainable winter road maintenance and management for future smart cities

Abstract

Intelligent transportation system (ITS) is an important part of modern transportation engineering and has a significant impact on improving traffic safety and mobility, particularly for cold regions that experience severe winter weather conditions. To help support and facilitate winter maintenance decisions, an advanced ITS monitoring technology known as the road weather information systems (RWIS), available in both stationary and mobile forms, has been deployed throughout many road networks around the world. RWIS autonomously provides real-time and near-future road weather and surface conditions information which highway maintenance authorities use to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of their maintenance-related decisions. However, deployment is limited due to its high installation and perpetual operating costs. To overcome these limitations, transportation agencies use a variety of methods to estimate the weather/road surface conditions based on the limited RWIS data points or measured locations to maximize the return on their investments. In this chapter, two different types of RWIS are introduced, including a discussion of their advantages and limitations. More importantly, the state-of-the-art parametric and nonparametric methods for estimating weather/road surface conditions, using the two types of RWIS, are also presented via real-world case studies. Results presented herein provide a stepping-stone toward the creation of a winter weather resilient smart city, which in the long run will benefit people in cold regions with improved safety and a more sustainable winter transportation system and environment.