Weather Savvy Roads: Sensors and Data for Enhancing Road Weather Management

This project is focused on enhancing road weather management during wildfires, flash floods, and other extreme weather through data collection, sharing, and public dissemination technologies. Three areas of focus include research and practical findings regarding best practices in roadway operations, a curated data catalog relevant to roadway management, and the dissemination and evaluation of sensors to aid in operational decision-making and information selection for the traveling public. Further implementation requires (1) integrating sensor data into Texas Department of Transportation IT architecture and existing software systems,(2) properly archiving and creating accessible data for analysis and validation purposes,(3) refining methods to improve sensor data coverage and reliability,(4) defining and continuing to track performance metrics, and (5) developing further processes to disseminate relevant information and data among agencies and to the public. The findings, lessons learned, sensors, and data analytic techniques were demonstrated in two workshops conducted in Abilene and Austin, TX, to familiarize practitioners on key concepts needed for conducting a successful sensor deployment and data analytics practice.