A significant increase in the awareness of the need for improved surface transportation weather services has occurred over the last five years. During this time, a coordinated national effort has been undertaken to highlight the unmet weather needs of the transportation community and identify research requirements and implementation strategies for improved weather services. The benefits of such technology improvements will include improved safety, efficiency, and capacity of the national surface transportation system. Because of the activities mentioned above, there will be an acceleration of research, development, and implementation of technologies focused on improving surface transportation weather services. In the next several years, the surface transportation system will move away from being primarily a reactive system to being a proactive system with respect to weather. The rapid rise in awareness of the impact of weather on the transportation system and the new relationships that are developing between the weather and transportation communities provide a significant opportunity for improving surface transportation weather services. Active participation by end users in defining surface transportation weather service needs will contribute to and help accelerate the development and implementation of new capabilities.
Abstract