Estimation Road Surface Temperature Variation Using Commercial Vehicle Ambient Sensor

Abstract

Road surface temperature is more important than ambient temperature in term of road safety during winter season. The conventional method to collect road surface temperature is to install Road Weather Station(RWS). However RWS can only collect spot information and could be costly. To enhance these problem, this study used the commercial vehicle ambient temperature(VAT) sensors can collect the pattern of air temperature along the road effectively and rapidly. Also the thermal mapping equipment was used to collect the road surface temperature(RST). After that, our research analysed the similarity of the patterns of road surface and ambient temperatures using correlation analysis. The result showed that the patterns of temperature variation collected from VAT sensors are statistically comparable to patterns of road surface temperature variation collected from a thermal mapping. In addition, this research developed a way to segment roadway based on variation in road surface temperature. This segmentation is useful to road authorities for managing the road and providing information based on road segmentation. Although VAT sensors do not provide highly accurate temperature readings, they can identify patterns of surface road temperature on roadway sections. This study found out that the VAT can be estimated the patterns of RST and could be replace the road weather station or thermal mapping system. This information can be used so that individual drivers, commercial vehicle and fleet operators and road authorities acquire critical real-time information on road conditions. Further, using these sensors instead of fixed sensors or thermal mapping can significantly reduce road maintenance costs. Also the result could be applied to the automated driving system to provide the road surface condition in the future.