A Contribution to Better Organized Winter Road Maintenance by Integrating the Model in a Geographic Information System

Background

One of the most challenging situations from real life is sanding icy winter roads. If the roads are not ploughed or slippery roads are not scattered, participants in traffic are exposed to great danger. Weather conditions often cause traffic jams and have negative economic effect, thus causing great dissatisfaction with people. In several papers (e.g. (Chapman & Thornes, 2011; Shao & Lister, 1995; Cypra & Seidl, 2012) the problem of winter road de-icing is considered using different formulations. In his Ph.D thesis Kršmanec (2013) proposed a new method for the construction of hierarhical regression models. The results are comparable with well known METRo method (Crevier & Delage, 2001). Chapman and Thornes claimed that the decision support system should replace the ‘local knowledge’ of the winter maintenance personnel. A negative bias should be added to the forecast in order to ensure that the highway remains safe and secure for all users (Chapman & Thornes, 2011). Marti et al. (2010) introduce a new multiagent system (MAS) used to support traffic management when the meteorological problems appear in the road network. Despite all technological solutions there are still problems with the reliability of information so Kaare et al. indicate that there are still problems with the reliability of information about road weather conditions. The possible solution is to gather data about key performance indicators and to give feedback about constructed road sections by comparing the data from distinct sensors and locations (Kaare et al., 2012). Chen and Chen used a holistic deterministic model to provide useful assessment and prevention information for traffic and emergency management (Chen & Chen, 2010). Ahmed et al. (2012) suggest that real-time weather information and traffic statuses are essential to address the crash frequency models, particularly for mountainous freeways with adverse weather conditions.

To deal with the problem properly, the security, economical and environmental effects have to be considered. Regarding security, the most exposed and first icy road network spots should be given priority. From the economical point of view, all these roads have to be scattered one after another using the cheapest route. From the environmental point of view we should minimize the undesirable effects that are result of different mechanisms of transporting salt from the roadway to the surroundings.