Skip to main content

FHWA’s weather guidelines for road users

The tremendous growth in the amount of available weather and road condition information—including devices that gather weather information, models and forecasting tools for predicting weather conditions, and electronic devices used by travellers — has led the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) to develop effective and specific guidelines for communicating road weather information in a way that is consistent with what travellers need, want, and will use when making travel decisions.
August 21, 2012 Read time: 2 mins
The tremendous growth in the amount of available weather and road condition information—including devices that gather weather information, models and forecasting tools for predicting weather conditions, and electronic devices used by travellers — has led the 2410 Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) to develop effective and specific guidelines for communicating road weather information in a way that is consistent with what travellers 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 Control Information project which was initiated to assist transportation officials in communicating both pre-trip and enroute road weather information effectively, consistently, and timely to meet the needs of travellers for different weather conditions and travel scenarios. This earlier project resulted in preliminary guidelines.

For the current 122-page publication, these preliminary guidelines were disseminated to a broad group of transportation and road weather officials for review and use.

These reviewers included staff from private agencies and State Department of Transportation (DoT) staff working at traffic management centres. Evaluation of the guidelines followed through end user surveys, on-site interviews and discussions, and application of the preliminary guidelines to assess their suitability and effectiveness for traffic operations. Valuable feedback provided by these end users was used to modify the preliminary guidelines and develop the revised guidelines.

The 122-page report can be downloaded from this link: %$Linker: External <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-16"?><dictionary /> 0 0 0 oLinkExternal http://ntl.bts.gov/lib/45000/45600/45623/FinalPackage_JPO-12-046_V1.pdf 122-page report false http://ntl.bts.gov/lib/45000/45600/45623/FinalPackage_JPO-12-046_V1.pdf false false%>

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • PPRS event: Road users’ concerns at the heart of the programme
    December 19, 2014
    Europeans are in two minds about whether their road transport has improved in the past five years, according to the latest European Commission’ Eurobarometer survey and report. According to 38% of respondents, road transport quality had gone up, but 40% said it had dropped, while 18% said there had been no change. Whatever the opinion on quality, 60% of respondents to the report’s survey considered congestion to be the most serious issue facing Europe’s roads. The survey highlighted the dominance o
  • IRF releases policy guidelines on safety in road work zones
    April 9, 2018
    The International Road Federation (IRF Global) has published policy guidelines in an effort to draw attention to the urgent need for coordinated efforts to foster a safety culture on road construction sites. Accidents on road construction sites are responsible for hundreds of thousands of injuries and thousands of deaths worldwide. Work zones present an increased risk for workers who build, repair and maintain roads, bridges and tunnels, as well as for a variety of road users, including pedestrians, bicy
  • Delay to SF-Oakland Bay Bridge East Span opening and probe report
    July 9, 2013
    The Toll Bridge Program Oversight Committee (TBPOC) today said that the previously scheduled Labor Day (2 Sep) opening of the new East Span of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge has been postponed. News of the delayed opening was announced at the same time as TBPOC released its investigative report into the 32 bolts that broke on the Bay Bridge in March 2013, and its review of other bolts on the bridge. The contractor now forecasts that the steel saddle retrofit of the failed bolts on the east pier will b
  • Ageing drivers in the US
    October 20, 2016
    US drivers are getting older, while there are now more females than males behind the wheel in the country. The latest data shows that nearly 20% of drivers in the US are aged 65 or more, and women drivers now outnumber male drivers. These trends have been identified as a result of data analysis by the US Department of Transportation's Federal Highway Administration (FHWA). The preliminary data from the FHWA shows that the US now has more drivers than ever before, an estimated 217.9 million. The research sho