EXAMINING THE INSTITUTIONAL ISSUES RELATED TO IMPLEMENTING ROAD AND WEATHER INFORMATION SYSTEMS (RWIS)

Aurora is a multi-national consortium consisting of the U.S. state Departments of Transportation of Minnesota, Iowa, South Dakota, Virginia, and Wisconsin; Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), Environment Canada, the Ontario Ministry of Transport, and the Swedish National Road Administration. These agencies are working together to advance Road and Weather Information Systems (RWIS) technology. This paper details a project, funded by the Aurora Program, which aimed to identify and document institutional issues relating to the implementation and development of RWIS. RWIS can be briefly defined as a collection of technologies which are used to assist transportation agencies in determining road condition and weather events. These technologies include pavement sensing and precipitation monitoring systems, for example. They also encompass various levels of sophistication from the utilization of a particular stand-alone RWIS technology to a statewide network of weather prediction and pavement temperature detection stations. For the covering abstract see IRRD E102946.