Weather Risk Management for Surface Transportation

1
Weather Risk Management for Surface
Transportation
2
Purpose of Presentation

• Weather risk management in surface transportation
• What is the state-of-the-art?
• Strategies for achieving risk management goals

3
Meteorology for surface transportation is less
about atmospheric conditions that it is about
forecasting conditions affecting a highway,
railroad right-of-way, or waterway.
4
Public-sector meteorologists have traditionally
focused on aviation

• Weather observation sites at airports
• Weather offices located at airports
• Suite of aviation-specific forecasts (TAFs,
  TWEBS, etc.)

5
During the last 15 years, private sector
meteorologists have focused on surface
transportion

• Track-specific forecasts for railroads
• Roadway Weather Information Systems

6
What is the state-of-the-art in commercial
meteorology?

• Observations
• Forecasting techniques
• Delivery

7
Observations

• Roadway weather information systems
• Media mesonetworks
• Private mesonetworks

There is a role for the Federal government in
Collecting, quality controlling and distributing
mesonetwork data
8
Non-Federal Weather Stations
KDOT

• KSN

City/County
9
Mesoscale models

• Show promise
• Not the answer yet

10
Forecast
11
Actual
12
Forecast
13
Actual
14
Current State-of-the-ArtTransportation Scale
Forecasts Using

• Analysis technology (altitude, mileposts,
  StormVision )
• Human forecasters
• Pavement surface modeling

15
Analysis Technology

• Meaningful array of data
• Interactive database
• StormVision

16
Human Forecasters

• On balance, make better forecasts than models
• Can make mission-critical decisions that are
  sensitive to client deadlines and trigger points

17
Pavement Models

• Allow atmospheric forecasts to be converted to
  improved highway condition forecasts

18
Delivery

• Milepost
• Stations

Frame-relay, web, satellite
This solution allows proactive weather risk
management to protect lives and revenue
19
Accountability

• WeatherData will provide accuracy reports.

20
Coming From WeatherData

• Vehicle-specific weather