Data Mining and Gap Analysis for Weather Responsive Traffic Management Program

During the past several years, the Federal Highway Administration's (FHWA) Road Weather Management Program (RWMP) has carried out a series of studies to gain a better understanding of travelers' behavior and responses to inclement weather conditions. The FHWA envisions that effective weather responsive traffic management (WRTM) strategies will be developed and implemented based on findings and recommendations generated from the efforts of last several years.

An important lesson learned from WRTM studies carried out so far is lack of relevant and sufficient traffic and weather data available for the analysis. Efforts were devoted at onset of previous WRTM studies to identify and obtain suitable data, but yielded limited results. Hence, this project looks into the issues related to 'traffic and inclement weather data.' Four objectives have been identified for this project as listed below: 1. Conduct a comprehensive search and documentation of traffic and weather data in the United States and abroad that could be used for WRTM; 2. Establish contacts with organizations that have suitable traffic data on inclement weather, and determine procedures/requirements to obtain these data; 3. Identify critical gaps in regards to the collection and processing of traffic data on inclement weather conditions; and 4. Recommend strategies and generate guidelines for gathering and processing data that will be used in WRTM studies.