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Vaisala acknowledges role in winter performance award

NOTE: Vaisala, an ITD consultant that maintains the Road, Weather Information Systems (RWIS), announced last week the technology partnership received a national intelligent transportation system award. The Vaisala announcement complements one that appeared in the Sept. 6 Transporter.

Vaisala's collaboration with Idaho Transportation Department has won a "Best New Innovative Product, Service or Application for 2013" award at the 2013 National Rural ITS Conference in St. Cloud, Minn. This award highlights new technology that furthers the development and/or deployment of rural Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) applications, as well as specific and measurable outcomes that result from the product or service.

Using Vaisala's pavement sensors that calculate grip or friction values, ITD discovered this value also can be used to measure the success of the department's winter road maintenance operations. Idaho personnel developed several benchmark indexes that calculated operational performance, and were able to normalize any variance caused by storms and seasons. Vaisala supported the development by integrating the indexes into its RoadDSS Navigator software, which allows decision-makers to quickly review the indexes alongside their other decision-making tools.

"Vaisala strives to develop and apply the latest technological advancements, not only on our own, but by helping solve the challenges our customers face," says Paul Bridge, offering manager and meteorologist for Vaisala Roads. "We are very proud to hear that our technology has been acknowledged as the most innovative in the industry."

Vaisala's road weather system provides real value to winter maintenance operations in Idaho. "We had a pretty significant year, this year (2012-13), and preliminary estimates, appears that we have had a 10-20 percent reduction in our $7 million chemical usage budget," says Dennis Jensen, mobility services-winter maintenance coordinator at ITD.