Atmospheric research plays a critical role in improving transportation safety and efficiency by identifying, diagnosing, and mitigating weather-related hazards across aviation, surface transportation, maritime, and space weather domains. RAL has a long history of translating scientific advances into operational capabilities, from improving aviation hazard detection and decision-making to delivering hyper-local, real-time road-weather information for travelers and transportation agencies. These efforts have reduced risk, improved operational planning, and enhanced resilience across complex transportation systems. Building on this foundation, RAL is expanding its expertise to maritime and space-weather applications, where advanced observations, forecasting, and decision-support tools are increasingly vital to global safety and infrastructure reliability.

Focus Areas of Research

Aviation   Surface Transportation