Predicting Hazardous Road Conditions | Pikalert®
According to the USDOT FHWA Road Weather Management Program, more than 1 million weather-related crashes occur every year, causing nearly 5,000 deaths and over 400,000 injuries. Accurately diagnosing and forecasting roadway conditions and hazards during winter weather conditions will help state DOTs decide when and where to allocate their plow and road treatment resources. Winter road-maintenance activities cost billions of dollars in annual taxpayer expenditures. Truer forecasts can promote safety, mobility, and fiscal responsibility during winter weather events and ultimately reduce the number of weather-related crashes and deaths.
Connected Vehicle Technology – Pikalert®
NSF NCAR has developed an advanced winter road maintenance and decision-support system (MDSS), named Pikalert®. Pikalert combines a cutting-edge forecasting system, and a road-condition treatment module with a wide array of real-time inputs, including surface observations, radar data, vehicle data, and camera imagery. Leveraging this information, Pikalert produces highly tuned forecasts and hazard assessments out to 72 hours for each road segment and road-weather information system (RWIS) within a state’s roadway network.
Pikalert® is currently installed and configured for real-time operations for 5 state departments of transportation (DOTs), along with a single private company that provides snow plow guidance to local freelance snow-removal companies. The Pikalert System also includes a quality-control module that notifies state DOT’s about potential problems within their RWIS sensors, helping states to more rapidly correct sensor failures. Pikalert not only provides hazard and treatment forecasts, but also provides winter storm guidance to National Weather Service (NWS) forecasters.
Contact
Please direct questions/comments about this page to:
Amanda Anderson
Associate Scientist IV