Episode 151: AURORA - 2026 National Briefing

This National Briefing segment is presented by James Roath Michigan DOT and features the Aurora Pool Fund Study. Aurora's work focus is on road weather, instrumentation, and forecasting among other related activities. 

Check out their work and get more information about Aurora at their website https://www.aurora-program.org/  or by emailing James Roath at RoathJ1@michigan.gov or Zach Hans at zhans@iastate.edu

Watch the video and presentation along with all the other briefings on our YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/@Talkinwinterops or listen on the Talkin Winter Ops podcast at https://transportation.org/winter-weather-management/sicop-talks-winter-ops/ or wherever you get your podcast content.

Sign up for email notifications on future episodes and other communications associated with winter maintenance and winter weather management by clicking on subscribe on the Talkin' Winter Ops website at TalkinWinterOps.com

Thanks for listening in and stay safe out there!

Transcript

Rick 0:11

Welcome back to Talking Winter Ops. It's that time of year again when we sit down with other organizations working in winter maintenance to catch up on what they've been doing this past year. I'm Rick Nelson, and I'll be your host for the 2026 National Winter Maintenance and Road Weather Briefing Series. These briefings give us an opportunity to catch up with our partners in winter maintenance and road weather, learn about what they've been working on over the past year, and hear about their plans for the future. More importantly, they give you a chance to see how these ideas, tools, and initiatives might fit into your own operation. So grab your favorite beverage, settle in, and let's catch up with our partners across the country to hear about what's new and what's coming up next.

SPEAKER_02 1:00

Hi, I'm Jed Falgren, State Maintenance Engineer for the Minnesota Department of Transportation. And for the last 14 years, I've been actively involved in the snow and ice community at the state DOT. And over the years, I've seen no shortage of new technologies, products, and ideas come along. The challenge often isn't finding information, it's figuring out what really works and what makes sense for your organization. As someone who's been involved with the program for these many years, I've come to appreciate the role the Ashto Winter Weather Management Technical Service Program plays in helping agencies answer those questions. One of the things that I've always valued most is that this just isn't theory, it's practitioners helping practitioners. It's a chance to learn from the experience of others. Avoid reinventing the wheel and tap into a network of people who understand the same challenges that we face every winter. I've seen firsthand how these ideas and relationships built through this program have helped agencies improve safety, efficiency, and service to our traveling public. And with a modest annual contribution, your agency can take advantage of the same resources, webinars, workshops, and peer networks that have made this program so valuable to me over the years. If you're not already involved, I really encourage you to take a look at the Ashto Winter Weather Management Technical Service Program. Visit transportation.org forward slash winter-weather-management. You may find the answers to a challenge you're dealing with today or the next idea that really helps you move your winter operations forward.

Rick 2:53

So this segment focuses on the Aurora Pool Fund study. And James Roth from Michigan DOT and chair of Aurora is here to fill us in on what's going on. Hi, James.

SPEAKER_00 3:05

Yep. How are we doing, Rick? Good, thanks. So happy to happy to be on and uh give my a little bit of the Aurora Aurora update. Get started. Um so yeah, my name is James Roth. Um with the Michigan DOT, I'm the chair this year. Um, so I'll just without further ado, I'll get started with the Auroral Pool Pooled Fund update. So we're basically a collaboration of states, um, heavily involved with researching uh road weather technologies to help uh with operations and really the motoring public and their safety. Um I could probably go on and on about what More Aurora is about, but I think you know that is uh really encompasses what uh what we what we like to be about as far as our our research and the projects we select. So we are currently uh with 17 states, and I say currently because there's a potentially a couple that may be joining. Uh hopefully I guess we'll see, but as as we know how those things work with with all that, so um, but these are the states in our current map. As you can see, we stretch pretty pretty well across the state, or across the country, excuse me. So we get a a good variety of um weather that talks, and then also um you know the different uh people in our in our group. It ranges from engineers to um meteorologists and other research folks. So we have some pretty productive conversations, and when we're selecting projects, we usually have uh pretty interesting opinions, and you know, what uh usually we can settle on some good some good topics and research we want to look into. So as I said, uh as you can if you couldn't tell from my picture there, I'm from Michigan DOT. Uh the vice chair currently uh is Kevin Duby from Arizona DOT. Of course, our our pool fund lead is Iowa and uh with Tina Tina Greenfield, and we're managed by Iowa State University uh with Zach and Neil. And of course, I also need to give a shout out to Judy Thomas as she helps make everything go. And then along with uh Kyle Klute, who handles a lot of the research uh background side of things, working with our each state's research group, and just you know having to deal with all those things, of course, keeping us on board and on track with what we need to be doing as a group. So didn't want to forget mentioning those two folks. So our typical year for Aurora is we meet once monthly virtually. We have an in-person meeting once in the spring and once in the fall. Uh, every other year we shoot for having what's called a Friends of Aurora, which is essentially a meeting about a day that we have uh vendors join us and other researchers. It's a very, very productive time for us. We get to hear from researchers and the vendors out there on what they have going on. They also get to hear from us about things that you know we would like to see or things that we would like to see develop that may not already be um happening out there. So there's a lot of productive uh conversations that are had for that um during the meeting, of course, after the meeting hours. And um, I know we've had multiple meetings with vendors after to kind of discuss looking at some of the things that they do. So it's a very, very great thing that um I think that we do with Aurora. Uh we also do a joint meeting with Clear Roads and Ashto. Did have our first one of this decade um in the fall in Minnesota last year, uh, which was great. I mean, it's a it's a lot, as you can kind of see in that picture. There's a lot of people in the room. Clear Roads, of course, is a is a much larger group than Aurora, but um we it was, I think, a very well um kept along meeting, very productive. First one we've had in a long time, so uh it was good to get the group together. Uh, we also, as an Aurora group, were able to take, we venture out and do a little bit of, I guess you could call field trips, um, checking out the state we're in, uh, visiting either a research facility, or if there's a vendor that is invit has invited us to sit through some presentations. Uh, we've done that. In the spring meeting last year, we were up in Anchorage, Alaska. We were actually able to go and have a little bit of a tour of the Ted Stevens Airport, got to listen to and see some a lot of the maintenance things that they uh things that they do. I know Mike Chapman uh last year when he gave this update, he he gave a good uh good update on our picture there and what we did while we were in Alaska, so that was uh definitely a a great trip for us. This spring we were down in Richmond, Virginia. We uh were able to take a tour of the insurance institute for highway safety. They do a lot of crash testing on vehicles. We were actually able to be there for a crash test that they did. Um, the picture of the vehicle that was crash tested is in the bottom bottom right of the screen. So that was pretty cool to see. Um just interesting to hear, you know, from their perspective on you know when it comes to safety and vehicles, things like that. As we're trying to improve our technologies and what's out there, obviously, to limit crashes and you know issues that are out on the roadway. It was a good visit to just kind of see some eye-opening things as far as you know what what's out there is as far as a vehicle safety and how much they've improved over the years. So that was another cool field trip that we were able to do. Uh being a smaller group kind of allows us to do those things. So our research idea solicitation is a little bit unique. We kind of put it out there, and um research uh universities and their groups kind of send us their ideas on topics that they feel would be good for a research project. We then narrow down uh that list to about eight. This year it was eight. Sometimes it's less than that, depending on how they they grayed out um with our system and where when we're all reviewing them on our own. Um then at our spring meeting we sit and listen to some presentations that kind of give us um it's a little bit more focused on you know what their what their plan is with the research project and what we can expect. So those are we did had them do uh recording sessions this year uh because it kind of helps limit the time, otherwise, some of the researchers can you know end up going beyond their time that we want to block for for them. And to be fair to each of the proposals in the universities, we try to limit that time so everyone has an equal time to present to us. Um then from there. This this year uh we were we did select one project, and that is um in talks right now with contracts and everything. So pretty sure that will be public news uh probably soon or hopefully soon, but um we did select one project this year. Uh this fall we uh it is another year for Friends of Aurora, so that'll be in Colorado Springs. Um that will be another good one as I'm uh our list has grown with the vendors that would like to attend that. So I do not have an exact number off the top of my head, but Zach and Neil could probably uh have that information on how many we're up to, but it is uh gonna be a solid group. So I'll go over some of the recently completed projects. First one, uh connected vehicle friction measurements for winter operations. Um this one was a little bit interesting just because not, you know, we're working with connected vehicles. Some some states have a little bit more of that data out there than others right now. Um, because since we're working with we're not able to see all of the connected vehicle data with with some of the American manufacturers kind of limiting access to a little bit of that. Um the European more of the European models that we were able to see, some states had a little bit more of that, so they were able to kind of get a little bit better picture of their state and some of their routes and see that. Um, just so we were did a little bit of an evaluation across a few DOTs with ranging um amounts of that data that's out there. So that was a pretty pretty interesting project for us. Of course, the friction and grip is a very, very hot topic, and uh our group, of course, is trying to stay stay involved in that along with connected vehicle and just how well we can incorporate that and and use all that information. Another completed project, automated winter road surface condition monitoring and estimation using Arwis and Fleet dash cameras. This one I can simply kind of say that it's one of the projects that would be considered like bridging a gap. Um, you know, there's a lot of data out there as far as like images and you know other road surface information, and it's just kind of a way to see how all that can be used in the tool and how it can all be kind of put together to paint a good picture of what's going on and how DOTs could use that, or the motoring public could kind of benefit from a lot of that data that is out there. So automating variable speed limits using weather traffic and friction data. Uh, of course, variable speed limits is uh very big topic for a lot of states, and uh, everyone's trying to figure out you know their best way that they can utilize uh the different weather data and information that's out there to the best of their abilities to um kind of adapt their variable speed limit areas and their routes that are. I know we have here in Michigan a region that was very interested in this project as they are um getting heavily involved in variable speed limits. So um just kind of really starting to get an understanding on all the data that we're able to kind of collect and how it can be utilized for that space is uh really the summary for that one.

Rick 13:47

Hey James, is is that BSL project, is that still ongoing or is that pretty close to being done, or where where are you with that?

SPEAKER_00 13:56

That one's been published. Uh I forget which month it was, I think, officially po published and posted. I would have to look at our our website, but um that one should be uh I think about done now.

Rick 14:11

Okay. Thanks.

SPEAKER_00 14:13

Yep. Uh one more here, uh, an intelligent human-centric communication system for adverse weather and road conditions. You know, there's a lot of language in there. Um but I think the biggest thing uh with this one is um really attempting to reach the public and uh you know getting weather info in a variety to a variety of users. Um I think Caltrans is actually looking to uh implement some of this. So we're kind of listening and following along with how things go for them with some of what they implement from this. So um, of course, AI powered knowledge, I mean that is you know huge right now, and trying to understand like what all we can um what all we can use for that and how it can benefit us. So that is while it's a completed project, that is obviously a very much a developing and ongoing um area that I it wouldn't surprise we have further uh projects that end up going down this route. So uh standardized framework for winter weather road condition indices. Um this one is kind of just a really early topic for this, um, and figuring out a way of standardizing some of the road weather conditions. Um so don't have a ton more to sum up on this one. It's pretty pretty straightforward, I guess, with the the title and uh the description and objectives we have listed there with the connected vehicle technology. So so for our active projects, currently we have a micro weather risk assessment for post-storm roadway safety. The objectives listed here are kind of a little bit um tough with some of the language. So just to give you a more, I guess, better understanding very quickly, is just that um it's a way to try and flag certain routes that um you're trying to get an understanding of why there might be refreezing issues or just you know, trouble issues um in a post-storm situation. So it's a way to try and flag that so states can kind of get an understanding of their areas that they may they can be aware that typically have issues with refreezing or having some type of a problem, potential problem after storms. Um, like I said, I know the language there can may be a little foggy and not be clear, so that is the best uh best way that I can put it. Uh hopefully I think folks can understand. So uh we had a or we have a deployment of pike alert for Aurora. Um this is an interesting uh research topic just because we were able to kind of get uh our eyes on this system, the pike alert system. Um in the picture you can see um I-75 that runs up north and south through Michigan, down into Ohio, and then the I-70 uh stretch that goes all the way from Utah all the way over to Ohio. Um, those are the two main stretches that we were uh that we had on this project, along with the um Rwists that were near um this stretch of highway. So um in Michigan, it was uh an interesting thing for us, which unfortunately uh we are we our RWIS uh were actually going through a little bit of a change with the vendor that is hosting and um kind of sending out our API for that data. So it was a little bit of a letdown for us as far as not being able to always see our RWIS on here and kind of being able to compare and see what the you know what was going on in here versus some of our other um ways that we have of seeing that data. So that was it was kind of a it was because um Colorado had done some work with NCAR to incorporate uh friction and grip um into their system. So that was uh kind of cool to see that in real time just be implemented right away and see how states could potentially see that out there. And in Michigan, it was like I said, a little bit of a letdown since we were going through that change and didn't necessarily get to get the full the experience of seeing that data all the time. Um as storms were blowing through this last winter. So um, but a cool project nonetheless, you know, something that states probably like us would wouldn't be able to kind of see and do if it weren't for being able to uh do a project like this through the pool fund. So uh another one here is the roadway friction forecasting using stationary and mobile friction data. Again, it's another one that's pretty pretty straightforward as far as explaining what the purpose of this one is. Um, gathering measurements from our stationary but also mobile. Um some states have a little bit more of the mobile friction than others, so um just trying to get an idea of the use cases for them and how it can be combined and kind of developing that that model uh for machine learning to try and predict the friction. Um so we'll see how that one goes. Uh the picture here is just kind of, I guess, a real um overview and kind of give people a one-a snapshot of really what Aurora is all about as far as the the data and management of it and you know all the different technologies from you know things that are on our snow plows to our road weather stations on the side of the road, um both full the full systems and the the smaller ones, and you know, just kind of where how it's all connected. Um and of course the connected vehicle mobile friction data, all that is uh you know, uh we as much as we like to get our hands on it, we also need to understand how we can really best utilize it when we do get our hands on it. So um this is just a picture that we like to show that kind of gives a I think a real real uh overview of what Aurora is all about. So uh that pretty much concludes my update. Uh again, my I'm James Roth, uh Michigan DOT. All right.

Rick 20:41

Thanks, James. So what we'll do is in the show notes, we'll put a link to the Aurora website so folks can go out there and take a look at your past research and and the work that's underway. And in addition to posting some some uh email addresses. So if if they want to get in touch and learn more about Aurora or more about a specific project, they'll be able to find their way to you guys. Awesome.

SPEAKER_00 21:05

Oh, that sounds great.

Rick 21:08

Well, James, thanks for sharing what's going on with Aurora. We really appreciate it, and and um we'll look forward to catching up with you in the future.

SPEAKER_00 21:17

Thank you very much, Rick. Appreciate being on.

Rick 21:20

Thanks for listening in on this year's national briefing. You can catch them all and other Talk and Winter Ops episodes on our website, talkin'winterops.com, at the Ashto Winter Weather Management website at transportation.org forward slash winter-weather-management, or wherever you get your podcast content. Video versions of this briefing are available on our Talkin' Winterops YouTube channel. Now, if something in this briefing sparked your interest, you can email me or our guests to keep the conversation going. Until next time, thanks for tuning in and stay safe out there.