Project: METRoSTAT - Reliable Road Condition Forecast

Road travel has become an essential component of daily life for many people throughout the world. The presence of adverse weather conditions, most notably during the winter, has a dramatic effect on road safety and delays. The winter climate in many countries necessitates significant investment for the prediction and subsequent prevention of snow and ice formation on highways. The total annual global expenditure on the winter COtenance of roads is about €10 billion._x000D__x000D_For the efficient road winter COtenance a most current weather information and weather forecasts are essential (e.g. precise forecasting of the time and duration of precipitation, amount of snow, and freezing drizzle). For the purpose to support the anti-icing and ploughing/de-icing operations, road weather information systems (RWIS) were developed and are nowadays a critical component of winter COtenance decision-making._x000D_The purpose of RWIS is to assimilate the influence of the meteorological and road data to develop a picture of how road surface temperature changes at a given site. An accurate prediction of road weather conditions is important in cutting the winter road COtenance costs, reducing the environmental damage from over-salting and providing safer roads._x000D__x000D_The most common approach to forecasting road conditions is the energy-balance model based on a one-dimensional diffusion equation. METRo is one of the widely used road weather prediction model used on a operational basis since 1999. Together with the input of an atmospheric forecast and observations from a road weather station (RWS) produces a local road forecast (road surface temperature and condition)._x000D_Physical models still show a large degree of error at some problematic sites at which the environmental conditions are too complicated to be simulated correctly by the model in a numerical way._x000D__x000D_A new high resolution web-based service for road weather forecasting METRoSTAT will be developed. The existing state-of-the-art technologies will be integrated and upgraded with innovative algorithms which will result in:_x000D_- enhanced accuracy of road surface temperature and state forecast and_x000D_- high temporal and space resolution of the road weather forecast._x000D__x000D_The proposed project is addressing the current market situation with presenting a modular, technologically independent, price/performance competitive, accurate and reliable COTS solution based on globally respected METRo open source system and upgraded by combining statistical and physical approach for prediction._x000D_Benefits of using METRoSTAT will be: road winter COtenance cost reduction (lower salt and staff costs), reduced harmful effect of salt on the environment and increased road safety._x000D__x000D_Our target market and customers are public services (public road COtenance services, public meteorological agencies) and private companies (private road COtenance services, private weather service providers) as well as airports in temperate climate region (Europe, USA, Canada). Our potential customers are road winter services which already implemented RWIS into their decision-making procedure but do not have a forecasting model or it is not reliable as well as services which have not implemented RWIS yet._x000D__x000D_The consortium consists of CGS plus d.o.o. (Slovenia) as CO Participant and research performing SME, and the Slovak Hydrometeorological Institute (SHMI) as a Participant and research institute. CGS plus d.o.o. is the leading company for RWIS in Slovenia. The SHMI is fulfilling objectives and duties of the national hydrometeorological service. _x000D__x000D_CGS plus d.o.o. will lead and coordinate activities of the project as well as provide all technical knowledge about road physical model and road weather modelling, software development and RWIS needed for successful realization of the project. SHMI will contribute their knowledge about numerical weather prediction models and their operational exploitation in the field of high impact weather prediction. Added value through cooperation at the project will be synergy of knowledge and experiences of both Ps which will result in an innovative software module METRoSTAT for reliable road weather prediction._x000D__x000D_As a result of the project and the following commercialisation period CGS plus d.o.o. plans to market METRoSTAT regionally (first marketing phase) and globally in form of COTS (+ minor modifications) solution. SHMI goal within the project is to improve the quality of road weather information services that it currently offers as one of its commercial projects and to gain the right to further commercialise or use project results for academic purposes._x000D__x000D_The result of the project will be also increased research and development activities at CGS plus d.o.o. and SHMI and closer working relationships between the Ps and also with the European research community. The project will help to improve everyday life of citizens world-wide by increasing the safety of drivers on roads._x000D_

Acronym	METRoSTAT (Reference Number: 7050)
Duration	01/03/2012 - 30/09/2014
Project Topic	A new high resolution web-based service for significantly improved road surface temperature and state forecasting METRoSTAT will be developed.
Project Results (after finalisation)	A new high resolution web-based service for significantly improved road surface temperature and state forecasting METRoSTAT.
Network	Eurostars
Call	Eurostars Cut-Off 7

Project partner

Number	Name	Role	Country
2	CGS plus d.o.o., Innovative IT and environmental technologies	Coordinator	Slovenia
2	Slovak Hydrometeorological Institute	Partner	Slovakia