MetService - Annual Report 2011 - Crown Ownership Monitoring Unit

We’re here to talk about...
Making our
roads safer
In the last three years, MetService and the NZ Transport
Agency (NZTA) have installed 42 solar-powered, automatic
weather stations along the Desert Road, on roadsides
through South Island high country and other difficult routes.
Completed in November 2010, the
network has been recognised as the
most outstanding example of road
safety innovation in New Zealand by the
Institution of Professional Engineers.
While it is difficult to isolate the
network’s effect on road safety, 54 fewer
people died in road accidents in the first
eight months of 2011 than in the same
period last year. That’s a drop of 24
percent. MetService is proud to be part
of anything that helps save lives.
Roadside weather stations are used
widely overseas however, MetService’s
Paraparaumu workshop built the masts
and cabinets here for less than half the
price of an imported kit. The electronic
brain powering the stations and the web
platform that delivers forecasts are also
MetService innovations.
Each station is linked to sensors that
feed back real-time data on wind speed
and direction, rainfall, temperature,
humidity and the state of road
surfaces. Stations send this information
electronically back to base where it is
incorporated into thermal profiles for
each area and delivered as thermal
forecast maps to roading contractors
via the web and text messaging.
Snow and ice are significant road hazards.
Before the stations were installed,
decisions to close or treat roads relied
heavily on ad-hoc observation and
experience. Now contractors can
accurately assess which parts of the
road will freeze, and whether to use
grit to stop motorists skidding or more
expensive ice inhibitors that are efficient
and environmentally friendly but wash
away in the rain.
The stations have other uses too,
such as monitoring gale force winds
on Auckland’s Harbour Bridge and
Wellington’s Aotea Quay. All this is
good news for motorists, making our
roads safer and journeys less likely
to be disrupted.
6 Meteorological Service of New Zealand Ltd Annual Report 2011