Road Networks Winter Risk Estimation Using On-Board Uncooled Infrared Camera for Surface Temperature Measurements over Two Lanes

Abstract

Thermal mapping has been implemented since the late eighties to establish the susceptibility of road networks to ice occurrence with measurements from a radiometer and some atmospheric parameters. They are usually done before dawn during wintertime when the road energy is dissipated. The objective of this study was to establish if an infrared camera could improve the determination of ice road susceptibility, to build a new winter risk index, to improve the measurements rate, and to analyze its consistency with seasons and infrastructures environment. Data analysis obtained from the conventional approved radiometer sensing technique and the infrared camera has shown great similarities. A comparison was made with promising perspectives. The measurement rate to analyse a given road network could be increased by a factor two.

New Role of Thermal Mapping in Winter Maintenance with Principal Components Analysis

“…Surveys are conducted in winter under a range of atmospheric conditions, ideally just before dawn, to build up a "thermal fingerprint" of RST variations around the route. These fingerprints are then translated into 2 Advances in Meteorology thermal maps and then used for daily forecasting alongside numerical forecast models [2,[4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13]. Other uses for thermal mapping include the optimisation of routes for anti-icing [14] or identification of locations for the installation of road weather outstations.…”

A geostatistical approach to winter road surface condition estimation using mobile RWIS data

“…Thermal mapping (TM) is one of the techniques that can quantify the variation of RST. It uses a vehicle-mounted infrared thermometer to collect data under different weather conditions which can then be graphically visualized by creating thermal fingerprints (Shao 1990;Chapman and Thornes 2005;Marchetti et al 2011). It is customary that thermal surveys would be done along a road network over multiple nights with varying atmospheric stability, thus the reliable amplitude of RST variations can be obtained (Chapman and Thornes 2008).…”