Roadway maintenance condition detection and analysis
AssigneeState of Ohio, Department of Transportation
InventorsJohn A. MacADAM, David L. Holstein, Thomas M. Lyden, Sonja R. Simpson, Scott E. Lucas
Life of this patent
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Abstract
The present invention is a system and method for detecting traffic impacting snow or freezing rain weather events using data obtained from roadway weather information systems and traffic data monitoring systems, determining when such events end based upon weather and traffic pattern information, and calculating the effectiveness of roadway maintenance efforts after the detected end of such a traffic impacting snow or freezing rain weather event.
Claims17
A system for analyzing weather and traffic data comprising:
- a) a computer device in communication with at least one traffic information system and at least one weather information system;
- b) where said computer system is programmed with an algorithm which provides reporting on the performance of road maintenance efforts;
- and
- c) said algorithm calculates said reporting using weather condition data and traffic speed information obtained from said at least one traffic information system and said at least one weather information system.
A method of analyzing weather and traffic data comprising of the steps of:
- a) receiving weather data from at least one weather information system;
- b) receiving traffic information from least one traffic information system;
- c) analyzing the received traffic and weather information;
- d) detecting the beginning and ending of weather events;
- e) calculating the time required for traffic speed to recover to expected values after the ending of such weather events;
- and
- f) reporting the calculated time to recover.
A method of calculating effectiveness scores for roadway maintenance efforts comprised of the steps of:
- a) receiving a date and time range;
- b) receiving a range of geographic regions;
- c) retrieving traffic data for said date, time, and geographic regions;
- d) sorting retrieved data into a group of smaller geographic regions;
- e) analyzing weather data for each of said smaller geographic regions to detect weather events;
- f) analyzing each of the detected weather events to determine a time at which the weather event ends;
- g) analyzing traffic data, for said smaller geographic regions, occurring after each said determined weather event end time to detect a return to normal traffic behavior pattern;
- h) calculating a roadway maintenance scores based on the amount of time between each determined weather event end time and detected return to normal traffic behavior time;
- and
- i) reporting calculated roadway maintenance scores.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.