Development of Winter Maintenance Support System: Overview and Status

In snowy, cold regions, keeping travel safe, effective, and efficient during the wintertime is an important theme and road administrations conduct various snow and ice control operations to provide as good roadway conditions as possible. With the limitation of budgets and the high expectation of the public, it is necessary to conduct winter maintenance operations more efficiently. The Civil Engineering Research Institute for Cold Region, Japan, has undertaken the development of a winter maintenance support system to improve the productivity and efficiency of winter maintenance management and its practices. The system, known as the maintenance decision support system, has been developed to be suitable for Japan’s geographical features, weather, and existing snow and ice control activities. This system consists of weather forecasts and the prediction of road surface temperature and condition. Furthermore, the system has been developed and improved in cooperation with other relevant organizations. The project began observing the weather and road surface temperature and developing the prediction model in 2004, and in 2005 the prototype started experimentally providing the information while improving the model and interface as the need arose. This paper describes the conceptual framework of this information system and status of the project. The paper also details the practical/operational situation as well as the evaluation of the system.