DEVELOPMENT OF A SNOWSTORM VISIBILITY INFORMATION SYSTEM FOR ROAD USERS

摘要

In recent years, snowstorm-induced traffic hindrance has occurred in regions wherernthere have been few snowstorms in the past. Such snowstorms occur due to rapidlyrndeveloped low-pressure systems.rnBecause snow-control facilities such as snow fences and snowbreak woods cannotrnaddress such sudden and extremely harsh snowstorm problems and their developmentrnis cost- and time-intensive, in 2009 we at the Civil Engineering Research Institute forrnCold Region (CERI) developed the Snowstorm Visibility Information Website, whichrnprovides visibility information to support driver decision-making. We developed a methodrnof forecasting road visibility distance under snowstorm for the upcoming 24 hours, andrnwe started 24-hour visibility forecast provision in 2013. The number of the visits to thernsite has been increasing year by year, and there have been dramatic increases since thernintroduction of the 24-hour forecast.rnGenerally, road surveillance cameras are used to obtain road condition information.rnHowever, road surveillance cameras are expensive to install and operate. We developedrnand tested a system that collects information from general road users via a site to whichrncell phone users upload data and that collects road images that are automaticallyrncaptured by smart phone from a vehicle on the road.