Teconer’s RWS10 Road Weather Station has been installed in the same location as Vaisala’s road weather stations ROSA and DSC211 at Arkala near Oulu on the main road 20. This blog reports the comparison results of different measurands in separate articles. Information about winter road maintenance has been collected separately. Maintenance routes seem often to end near the test station, which is sometimes reflected in the data. If you need further details of the comparison, contact us.
Another RWS10 station is installed in Espoo near the intersection of Vihdintie (120) and Velskola – Lakisto road to measure the lane in the direction of Helsinki. The nearest Fintraffic road weather station is in Ollila, about 7 km away. The comparability of this data is weaker. Maintenance is also often inconsistent, as the Velskola – Lakisto road divides routes in different directions.
Fig. 1. The RWS10 station in Espoo.
All the measurements of RWS10 are non-invasive remote measurements. The road condition analysis is based on all the measured data. Direct measurements include optical surface condition data, road surface temperature, air temperature and humidity, and air pressure. A model calculates the road temperature at a depth of 6 cm from the surface temperature. This value is called the ground temperature at reference stations. The dew point is calculated from the air temperature and humidity. Wind speed is calculated from direct measurements and reported as a quantity. RWS10 is a single permanently installed unit with separate housing for the power supply and communication unit. All software maintenance and sensor adjustments can be done through the communication connection. The data is updated in Teconer’s system approximately every minute, containing raw data for sensor development and monitoring. This test setup also includes a separate device for connecting data directly to Fintraffic’s system.
The Arkala ROSA station has two DRS511 sensors. The DSC211 measures the state of the road surface optically, while other data, such as temperatures, come from other sensors. The data update interval is approx. 10 minutes.
Some data gathered by the RWS10 can be observed under the serial number S005 in roadweather.online (requires logging in). In the reference environment, the data is stored in one-day periods in an Excel file, including both RWS10 and reference sensor data. In addition, photographs of the weather camera in the direction of Oulu have been stored so that situations can additionally be assessed on the basis of what has been seen. Images are collected automatically when the weather or precipitation changes and at least every 2 hours. This data is intended as a basis for reflection, discussion and development by those interested. The programs on the RWS10 station are occasionally to some extent updated to improve performance.
There are further detailed articles in the blog series “Winter maintenance of roads and runways”. If you need more insights into the comparison data, contact us.
