Best Practices for Road Condition Reporting Systems

Often, the center of an agency’s traveler information system is a Road Condition Reporting System (RCRS). The RCRS is frequently the focal point, populated by manual and automated data and information feeds, supplying information to various information dissemination mechanisms. While the potential benefits of an RCRS are obvious, there are also costs of associated with the development, management, and support of the software system as well as costs associated with the operator time to perform entry. The benefits and costs are impacted by many institutional and technical issues that operations managers must face. This report presents a synthesis of current industry practices regarding the design, development, operation, maintenance, and use of RCRSs.

This report compiles information received through a survey and interviews with transportation agencies throughout North America to understand the uses of RCRSs and to identify industry practices that have delivered benefits to the agencies operating RCRSs. A total of 49 Current RCRS Industry Practices, 7 Best Practices, and 3 Emerging Best Practices are described in this report.