MATHEUS AND WINTER: THE EXPERIENCE IN FINNISH ROAD AND TRAFFIC MANAGEMENT

Finland is a sparsely populated country in Northern Europe. The country has a population of about five million. The Finnish Road Administration (Finnra), divided into nine regions, manages 78,000 km of public roads. The Uusima region, which is probably the most significant of all the regions, includes Helsinki, the capital. The traffic situation and the condition of roads are under constant surveillance. There are 180 automatic weather stations and 210 automatic traffic surveillance stations covering the road network. These stations are developed and manufactured in Finland. The MATHEUS project (Management of Traffic in Helsinki Urban Surroundings) aims to produce a traffic management centre to take care of traffic monitoring, traffic control and traffic information in the Helsinki area. The traffic management centre of the Uusima region is being set up in connection with the existing weather monitoring centre. The winter in Southern Finland can be regarded as rather difficult as far as traffic is concerned. The temperature fluctuates above and below zero degrees centigrade and it snows frequently. The automatic road weather stations and their utilization on road maintenance have been improved. The road weather monitoring centre operates 24 hours a day throughout the winter season. One main reason to develop the road weather monitoring centre is that many accidents due to ice and slippery roads occur on the road network in Southern Finland. The road weather operator gives advice to the road maintenance team by giving them early alarms and necessary information for preventative action. With the help of accurate road condition forecasts, snowplowing and the spreading of salt has become more effective. Nowadays, a big amount of salt is spread in liquid form (reduction is about 10%). The new maintenance standard is called "quality e" and it is used on "Europe roads" (E-roads) to improve traffic safety. The total amount of last winter's traffic accidents (95-96) is 20% lower than the average of the last five years. Obviously, the "quality e" maintenance project has been a beneficial factor concerning this positive development. In 1994, the Uusima region launched the MATHEUS project to develop traffic management in the Helsinki area. The project aims at producing an active traffic management centre. Some components of this centre already exist, the most important of them being the well functioning weather monitoring centre.

• Supplemental Notes:
  • Full conference proceedings available only on CD.
• Corporate Authors:

  ITS America

  1100 17th Street, NW, 12th Floor
  Washington, DC  United States  20036
• Authors:
  • Muurinen, I
  • Kokkinen, M
• Conference:
  • Intelligent Transportation: Realizing the Future. Abstracts of the Third World Congress on Intelligent Transport Systems
  • Location: Orlando, Florida
  • Date: 1996-10-14 to 1996-10-18
• Publication Date: 1996

Language

• English

Media Info

• Pagination: n.p.

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Crash causes; Deicing chemicals; Driver information systems; Highway maintenance; Highway traffic control; Icy roads; Monitoring; Prevention; Roads; Safety; Snowplows; Traffic crashes; Weather; Weather stations; Winter
• Uncontrolled Terms: Road conditions
• Geographic Terms: Finland
• Old TRIS Terms: Weather caused accidents
• Subject Areas: Highways; Maintenance and Preservation; Operations and Traffic Management; Safety and Human Factors; Security and Emergencies; Terminals and Facilities; Vehicles and Equipment; I62: Winter Maintenance; I73: Traffic Control; I82: Accidents and Transport Infrastructure;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 00741507
• Record Type: Publication
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: Sep 3 1997 12:00AM