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- Doug Galarus
- Western Transportation Institute
- Montana State University
- David Veneziano
- Western Transportation Institute
- Montana State University
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- The opinions, findings and conclusions expressed in this presentation
are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the U.S.
Department of Transportation, the California Department of
Transportation, or Montana State University.
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- Posted by FHWA on March 15, 2010
- Proposals Due April 14, 2010
- The goal of this Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) is to support research
and scientific study on the use of Clarus System data to improve surface
transportation weather management/operations, create innovative
interfaces, and/or develop new applications including weather-responsive
traffic management tools. The
FHWA anticipates making up to seven (7) awards, but reserves the right
to make more or fewer than seven (7) awards.
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- Proposal Submitted on Time
- Included signed letters of support from WSRTC member states: California,
Oregon, Washington and Nevada
- GOAL: Expand the One-Stop-Shop Prototype to cover all of California,
Oregon, Washington and Nevada
- … to address the shortcomings of current (multi-state) web-based
weather information sources for travelers (and DOT personnel) …
- Project awarded on 9/24/2010
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- FHWA and Consortium members were invited to review the site and comment
on it via an evaluation survey. We have compiled results to date.
- In general, we have included all of the anticipated data sets, including
coverage of Washington with nearly all layers. (Additional layers have
been identified.)
- We’re working on the final report …
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- If time, network, etc. allow …
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- Survey results
- Total of 13 responses – somewhat expected
- Responses received from California, Nevada, Oregon, Washington State
and Washington, D.C.
- Survey feedback complimented by data from Google Analytics
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- Utility of Current Weather Data
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- Utility of forecast weather data
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- Utility of Road/Travel Condition data
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- Feedback on additional data
- Highway Advisory Radio activation and messages.
- Nothing additional, very good content.
- There are no Features of Interest for Washington State. Please add.
- "It was confusing where some of the functions required that you
click on the icons to obtain information whereas other
"icons" were actually the information. There's a bit of a Human Factors
element going on here. I
realized it after playing with the site, but I wonder if a wider
audience might become more easily frustrated.
- You may want to consider for the static icons indicating the unit of
measurement on the drop down menu (i.e. Celsius vs. F).
- More States included, this is an incredible tool and I would use it
even more if I could use this for more states. Great job team! Very
practical and intuitive! I'm sharing this with everyone that I know who
travels in those regions!
- Continuous profile of weather forecast. Especially precipitation and
alerts for potential ice/chain control on roadways.
- Under the "Road/Travel Conditions" tab I would like to see
flow data available as an option. WSDOT data is available through our
API at: http://webpub3qa.wsdot.wa.gov/traffic/api/
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- Benefits of website
- Weather on route I'm taking, information on potential travel delays.
- Pre-trip planning and the ability to actually view conditions (CCTV,
Chain Control, CMS, etc.) along a route seamlessly.
- Provides information concerning road conditions and weather forecasts
on one website.
- Being able to actually see the road and weather conditions via the CCTV
images is great. Seeing the
things that could affect travel, such as incidents and construction,
right on the map is definitely useful.
The terrain is also interesting and gives a good
perspective. The wind display is
just cool.
- Information for road travel.
- Weather hobbyist and amateur radio operator. This site will be
interesting from a hobby point of view and will be helpful during bad
weather.
- Current and future weather conditions along planned route. Current
incidents and future/ongoing roadwork along planned route.
- There are so many, I love that you can see the CMS signs, that gives
great data to a traveler, and to be able to see them in advance,
awesome, The weather forecast data was very useful as was the current
weather data. I love all of the different features on here.
- Trip planning.
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- Website improvements
- The route planning box covers up part of the route on my screen. If planning box could be moved rather
than the map being moved on the screen reading would be easier.
- More information in Nevada.
Alerts. Quality control
or flags? Current weather sky
cover.
- It was hard to understand some of the coding for the areas cited, for
instance when looking at the temperature for a certain area.
- Road Information has too many flags.
Noticed that one closure had hundreds of flags going along the
length of the closure. It is too
much and overkill. Is there a
way to separate out the daytime and nighttime closure? There's generally a lot more
nighttime closures which overpowers the daytime closure flags. Most commuters/non-commercial drivers
are only interested in daytime closures.
- I have accessed this site from different PCs/networks and load and
refresh rates seem a bit sluggish. This will not inhibit me from using
the site.
- Present "Route Planner" more prominently and, as an option,
limit Road/Travel Condition icons to the planned route only. The temp
and other weather circle icons on the map make it very busy. Try making
the weather and temperature "circles" an optional display or
another alternative is to simply remove the circles and use text only
on a color map.
- Again, I thought it was very intuitive, I would just like to see it
include more states to add to its usefulness
- User guide videos (short 1-3 mins) will be useful as well because I
don't think we are used to having this much useful information in one
place!
- Currently you can only see one "Road/Travel Condition"
element at a time. It would be nice if these features were layers on
the base map that could be overlayed, enabling us to see several
different features concurrently.
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- Website improvements
- There is a lot of potential with this project. The work done to date is very
good. Speed and performance are
much improved. Weather info is
useful and the forecast info is good.
Need to do quite a bit of work on the look and feel. Menu at top is disjointed and is
distracting - make one blue bar across the top with the pull
downs. Need to launch with
elements and other road related conditions first. Weather is important but should be
secondary to the elements (meaning it is all there as it is now but you
go to it generally after you have looked at the elements and what is
happening on your route). Should
come up with elements first (CCTV, CMS, RWIS, HAR, Construction, Chain
Control and Incidents) and at a zoom level that is workable. Don't try to show the entire region
on the big map upon launching the site.
Use a small map (shows just the entire WSRTC region) on the
right that has a movable box showing the area covered by the big
map. When a new user gets into
the site, determine where they are from by their ISP and orient the big
map location using that info.
They can then move where they want from there (using the small
right hand map or on the big map) and adjust the zoom level on their
own. When the route planner is
launched, show the route on the small map (in addition to part of the
route covered on the big map) and orient the big map at the starting
point of the route. Try to show
the markers associated with mountain passes along the route. I have a few other things we can
discuss later.
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- Location and duration
- Site visits
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- Layer event selections
- Marker event selections
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- Evaluation conclusions
- Website examined by a number of users
- Visits and surveys from all WSRTC states
- Well received based on survey feedback
- Useful insights obtained for future improvements/updates
- Analytics data show that both weather and traveler information was of
interest
- Still need feedback from goods movement and law enforcement users
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- Caltrans ($150,000) and WTI ($50,000) funded via WSRTC
- To start in late 2011.
- Prepare the system for wider use.
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- Try it out:
- http://clarusoss.weathershare.org/
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Notes
