Introduction of virtual road weather stations using connected vehicles

Purpose and goal

The project aimed to generate geographically more comprehensive and cost-effective road surface information through connected vehicles than what today´s RWIS system is capable of. RWIS are costly, require maintenance and are not scalable in the same way as connected vehicles. Connected vehicles in turn are a more scalable way to acquire measurement data, the down side is that they only measure a subset of RWIS. The goal was to develop a prototype for virtual RWIS stations and then during the winter investigate whether it would be useful for a municipality´s winter road maintenance.

Expected results and effects

The prototype that was produced was not considered valuable or useful enough for winter road maintenance. The reason was that it only presented current state data. Winter road management did not feel that it provided sufficient information as a decision support system. They need forecasts and thus this tool cannot compete with free services such as SMHI. On the other hand, the municipality discovered great value in the road friction data. Not as support for decision-making, but rather to be able to follow up the outcome of winter road maintenance for the first time.

Planned approach and implementation

The setup for the project was to 1. Interview the end user about their problems and needs. 2. Develop a software service that covers the needs. 3.a. The end user tests the service sharply during the winter. 3.b. Use, results and feedback are discussed during project meetings 4. Act on feedback and make corrections in service 5. Draw conclusions about the usefulness of the service. At the beginning of winter, an unforeseen quality problem with the modeling of the road surface temperature was also discovered. A development effort was carried out and the problems were fixed.