Work Plan
The Clarus initiative has been structured into four broad tracks and are described below in the following subsections. At a high-level, these tracks are:
- Track 1: Stakeholder Coordination
- Track 2: System Design
- Track 3: Multi-State Regional Demonstration
- Track 4: Final Design and Model Deployment
Track 1: Stakeholder Coordination
The FHWA Road Weather Management Program led a successful project called the Maintenance Decision Support System (MDSS) prototype from 1999 through 2004. A stakeholder group was used to keep the project visible to the maintenance community and grounded in the realities of present day science and operations. The stakeholder group was directed by FHWA, but it consisted of personnel from other federal agencies and laboratories, State DOTs, private sector vendors and academia. The stakeholder group model was instrumental in building partnerships, acceptance of the concept, project ownership and consensus in the design, demonstration and eventual technology transfer.
This stakeholder group template will be used for the Clarus initiative, and in this case will be called the Initiative Coordinating Committee (ICC). Similar to the MDSS project, the ICC consists of personnel from various disciplines (public, private and academic sectors) with the FHWA acting as the lead agency. However, because the scope of Clarus is much broader than MDSS (which focused on the winter maintenance community) the ICC will be broader, multi-modal, and interdisciplinary. Primary among all of the stakeholders is NOAA because of the breadth of its weather observation and forecasting experience and its congressionally defined responsibilities. Members of the ICC will participate for the duration of the initiative and will meet at least annually.
The ICC kickoff meeting was held in September 2004. Nearly 50 participants traveled to Norman, Oklahoma to learn about near-term plans for the Clarus initiative ( 1 ). An Initiative Management Team was also created to provide leadership, direction and approval for ICC activities. The Initiative Management Team is comprised of personnel from federal agencies such as FHWA and NOAA and from professional societies such as the Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE), the American Meteorological Society (AMS), ITS America and the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO).
The professional organizations will bring a mix of meteorological and surface transportation expertise from state and private sector resources.
One of the main functions of the Initiative Management Team is to provide oversight and support to Clarus project task forces. A project task force is a subcommittee of ICC members that meet for a finite amount of time with very specific objectives. During the kickoff meeting, three project task forces were created. These were the User Needs
Assessment Review task force, the Use Cases/Application Areas Review task force and the Leveraging Opportunities task force. Results from these subcommittees will have a direct impact on the development of the Clarus concept of operations document.
The ICC will support technical and programmatic considerations involving system design, design review, the multi-state regional demonstration, and the model deployment. The ICC panel of subject matter experts in weather observing and forecasting, transportation operations, networking and data management across business sectors will be coordinated to ensure that stakeholder interests are addressed through each development phase.
Key activities of the ICC and their anticipated schedules will include:
- A review of the user needs and concept of operations. The ICC will be briefed on the system design and proof-of-concept demonstration (FY 2005 and 2006).
- A review of the overall system design and a briefing on the multi-state corridor demonstration. This information will be used as consideration for site selection and implementation of the multi-state corridor demonstration (FY 2006).
- A review of the evaluation and lessons learned on the multi-state corridor demonstration. Next steps will determine design enhancements and plans for a more complex model deployment (FY 2007).
- A review of the final design and regional Clarus model deployment. Activities will transition into the development of guidance products for system implementation and technology transfer (FY 2008).
The remaining tracks of the Clarus initiative follow a proven systems engineering process that emphasizes extensive testing and evaluation. First, the system design addresses the basic issues and stakeholder needs that are to be supported and prepares extensive open system documentation to enable the broadest possible deployment. Second, the multi-state regional demonstration evaluates the design in a real-world environment to ensure that the observing and forecasting needs of the stakeholders are satisfied. Third, the final design provides a stable, open-source design that can be readily implemented, and a model deployment that serves as a catalyst for Clarus deployment nationwide.
Track 2: System Design
The system design for Clarus will begin with a task to develop a requirements document called the concept of operations. At its conclusion, this task will provide a description of the observing and forecasting needs of the stakeholders. It will also examine the requirements for the collection, quality assurance and archiving of the nation’s inventory of data from State agency ESS. The concept of operations will also determine the requirements of potential end users and the Internet portal that will make the information available to the greater community.
Along with the concept of operations document, there are several other significant engineering documents that are required for Clarus. A high level system requirements document will specify the environment and operating state for each phase of the Clarus system implementation including the proof-of-concept demonstration and the multi-state regional demonstration. A detailed system requirements document will be created to describe computer resources and information flows for all functions described in the high level system requirements document. This document will examine all types of information needed by the system and cover all relevant data flows from environmental sensors, flows within the system and flows between the system and end users. Together, the high level system requirements and detailed system requirements documents will contain all functional, performance, organizational, hardware, software, interface and testing requirements.
An architecture analysis and design gap analysis will be conducted to identify technological deficiencies and gaps that may hinder the deployment of the Clarus system or prevent it from obtaining a complete picture of road weather conditions. The design gap analysis report will also document deficiencies associated with communications and central systems (i.e., hardware and software) used to transmit, process and disseminate ESS data to transportation managers, as well as deficiencies in potential commercial-off-the-shelf components and other software. System design documents, including software specifications, will be developed based upon the system requirements documents and results of the architecture and gap analyses.
The proof-of-concept demonstration is expected to take place in FY 2006. Using all of the engineering documentation compiled in this track, the demonstration will involve establishing a limited ESS data collection network to test (or analyze) system performance and characteristics. Lessons learned during the proof-of-concept will be used to correct and enhance the system design.
In addition to the engineering documents and demonstration, the second track includes resources to integrate data from a number of State DOT RWIS into a NOAA database. NOAA’s Forecast Systems Laboratory has been supporting a program called Meteorological Assimilation Data Ingest System (MADIS) ( 4 ). MADIS was used successfully during the MDSS project to collect, process and forward State DOT RWIS data from the north central plains States in support of the project demonstrations.
The result of Track 2 will be an open-source system design that is moderately stable and ready to be introduced into a real-world working environment. The design will be extensible to accommodate current observational techniques and emerging vehicle-based and remote sensing technologies. The core functions of the Clarus network will be demonstrated and tested to ensure that the network design can support the observational data sharing needed to support new forecasting tools.
Track 3: Multi-State Regional Demonstration
Conducting the multi-state regional demonstration will enable the Initiative Management
Team and the ICC to evaluate the performance of the Clarus design. The stability of a system design rests on its ability to withstand unanticipated events. Rigorous testing of the system will expose performance limitations in an operational environment, when users are placing demands on the system for access to observational data, using forecasts and decision support products enabled through Clarus.
In addition, there will be an evaluation of how output of the Clarus network affects operational decisions that improve roadway mobility and safety as well as agency productivity. Further, there will be parallel efforts to integrate new and emerging technologies into the extensible Clarus database. These activities include:
- An investigation into the use of Vehicle Infrastructure Integration (VII) technologies to capture real-time weather and road condition information from vehicle platforms. This includes identifying the infrastructure needed to support these new technologies (such as power, communications, and installation requirements).
- Research on the use of Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) traffic cameras for the determination of driver-level visibility and pavement conditions (e.g., wet, dry, plowed, flooded).
- Research into the use of low cost, low power Phased Array Radars for near surface observing. These new radars are small enough to fit on a cellular telephone tower and can provide valuable information on the state of the lower atmosphere, which is not being sampled by National Weather Service (NWS) Doppler radars. This information could be used for both short range forecasting and as input into new land-air numerical weather prediction models.
- Data collection enhancements that will identify any new instrumentation that is needed to fill any observational gaps.
The result of this track is an enhanced Clarus system design and a package of observing and forecasting tools that have been evaluated in a real-world environment. The limitations of the design will have been identified so that a final design solution can address the remaining deficiencies.
Track 4: Final Design and Model Deployment
The final design effort is focused on preparing a stable, open-source system design that can be readily implemented by interested public or private sector organizations to share road weather observation data. The final design will also feature specifications for incorporating data from new mobile and remote sensing technologies.
The final design will be applied in a model deployment to showcase the true implementation costs and realistic implementation effort. The model deployment must consist of multiple States and an instrumented corridor that traverses the States. Geographic considerations for the model deployment will include the diversity of weather events and terrain.
An evaluation of such a model deployment will demonstrate the true operational benefits (i.e., improved mobility, safety and productivity) to State DOT personnel and private sector weather information providers and the traveling public. To provide step-by-step instructions on how to implement the Clarus network in different regions of the country, a detailed implementation guide will be developed. In addition, a network deployment cost estimation tool will be made available.
The culmination of this effort will be a regional deployment of the Clarus data sharing network and advanced road weather information products enabled through the Clarus system design and a suite of forecasting tools within it. This regional deployment will serve as a model for other networks to achieve nationwide operations.
(1) ITS America (ITSA), 2004: "Clarus Initiative Coordinating Committee (ICC) Resource Web Site," www.itsa.org/icc.html.
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