Road sensors to monitor salt, safety and congestion
Road weather experts gathered near Washington last month and agreed that the nation's highway system needs a dramatic increase in road sensor installations. The sensors would provide real-time identification of weather events that cost lives and damage commerce.
A year ago, Weather Information for Surface Transportation Update on Weather Impacts (WIST) estimated that every year nearly 7,400 Americans are killed and more than 690,000, injured in weather-related crashes. Weather accounts for 15% of the nation’s traffic congestion resulting in a $200 billion annual loss of productivity.
Jeffrey N. Shane, Undersecretary of Transportation for Policy, U.S. Department of Transportation (U.S. DOT) told more than 120 delegates at the Third National Surface Transportation Weather Symposium that adverse weather conditions account for 3.7 billion hours and 2.3 billion gallons of fuel wasted annually on the nation’s roadways. SI technical director Mort Satin represented the salt industry at the Symposium sponsored by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and US DOT. Among the presenters was snow/ice expert Lee Smithson representing state DOTs; Smithson has addressed the Salt Institute annual meeting.
“We are working with one hand tied behind our back when we talk about road weather management,” summarized Shelley J. Row, Director of the U.S. DOT’s Intelligent Transportation Systems Joint Program Office. She explained that the 162,373-mile National Highway System has only one environmental sensor for each 67 miles and the broader federal-aid system of nearly a million miles has one sensor for every 403 miles. The remaining 3 million miles of US roads, primarily local roads, have virtually no coverage.