TRANSMAP: An Integrated, Real Time Environmental Monitoring and Forecasting System for Highways and Waterways in RI (Rhode Island).

摘要

This report summarizes the work accomplished during the first year of a three-year project to develop a state of the art, integrated environmental monitoring and modeling system to provide data and information to support the operation, management, and evaluation of various land and marine based transportation systems in RI. The system, called TRANSMAP (Transportation Mapping and Analysis Program) is an extension of existing systems for environmental monitoring and modeling designed by University of Rhode Island (URI) scientists for marine (COASTMAP) and highway (ROADMAP) applications and commercially available systems. TRANSMAP features an open architecture, industry standard software tools and modules, an embedded geographic information system (GIS), standardized data handling protocols, an environmental data analysis and presentation system, and access for linkage to models and management tools. The first year project objectives are to: (1) develop an integrated system for monitoring and forecasting of environmental conditions on Rhode Island highways and waterways in support of the Rhode Island Department of Transportation (RIDOT) and the transportation community, (2) implement, test, and evaluate the performance of this system for land and water based measurement sites, (3) transfer the data products and forecasts to interested URI Transportation Center researchers, RIDOT operations staff, major transportation user groups, and the public, and (4) begin the process of transferring the system for commercialization by private industry. The basic framework of TRANSMAP has been constructed and the system is operational with access to a variety of existing, real time meteorological and marine measurement systems having been implemented. A thermal energy balance model that provides real time forecasts of the temperature profile in the roadbed has been developed and incorporated within TRANSMAP. A hazardous chemical spill model that predicts the zone of concern for an evaporative plume from land-based spills of hazardous chemicals have been developed and integrated within TRANSMAP. Testing and evaluation of the thermal energy model are now in progress. Tools have also been developed to access data from GIS databases and to display these as overlays on the system base map. The report concludes with a summary of planned activities to further develop, refine, and implement TRANSMAP and its associated web based access.