Testing and Evaluation of Preliminary Design Guidelines for Disseminating Road Weather Advisory & Control Information

2012Final report.Alfelor, RoemerPDFTech ReportFHWA-JPO-12-073DTFH61-06-D-00007/ORDER T11001/WO BA07-089Messages (Communications)Road weather information systemsHighway advisory radioAdvanced traveler information systemsITS program technologiesIntelligent transportation systemsITS program applicationsWeatherWeather conditionsRoad weather messagesTraveler advisoryRoad weather condition forecastsUnited StatesUnited States. Joint Program Office for Intelligent Transportation SystemsCampbell, John L.Cluett, ChristopherGopalakrishna, DeepakLichty, Monica G.Battelle Seattle Research CenterUnited States. Joint Program Office for Intelligent Transportation SystemsUnited States. Dept. of Transportation. Research and Innovative Technology AdministrationUnited States. Federal Highway AdministrationNTL-ENERGY AND ENVIRONMENT-ENERGY AND ENVIRONMENTNTL-INTELLIGENT TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS-INTELLIGENT TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMSNTL-INTELLIGENT TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS-Road Weather ManagementIntelligent Transportation Systems Joint Program Office;Federal Highway AdministrationThe tremendous growth in the amount of available weather and road condition information\u2014including devicesthat gather weather information, models and forecasting tools for predicting weather conditions, and electronicdevices used by travelers\u2014has led the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) to develop effective and specificguidelines for communicating road weather information in a way that is consistent with what travelers need, want,and will use when making travel decisions.This project, Testing and Evaluation of Preliminary Design Guidelines for Disseminating Road Weather Advisory& Control Information, builds upon the earlier Human Factors Analysis of Road Weather Advisory and ControlInformation project which was initiated to assist transportation officials in communicating both pre-trip and enrouteroad weather information effectively, consistently, and timely to meet the needs of travelers for differentweather conditions and travel scenarios. This earlier project resulted in preliminary guidelines.For the current effort, these preliminary guidelines were disseminated to a broad group of transportation and roadweather officials for review and use. These reviewers included staff from private agencies and State Department ofTransportation (DOT) staff working at Traffic Management Centers (TMCs). Evaluation of the guidelinesfollowed through end user surveys, on-site interviews and discussions, and application of the preliminaryguidelines to assess their suitability and effectiveness for traffic operations. Valuable feedback provided by theseend users was used to modify the preliminary guidelines and develop the revised guidelines. This report documentsthe work of the completed project. The revised guidelines are available as Report No. FHWA-JPO-12-046