A road may look perfectly clear, yet offer very little grip. A stretch that was safe an hour ago may now be slippery. And just a few kilometres away, conditions might be completely different.
That's one of the challenges of winter road maintenance. Conditions can change quickly, and understanding where and when those changes happen isn't always straightforward.
Weather forecasts, fixed sensors and manual inspections all play an important role, but they often provide only a limited and fragmented view of a constantly changing road network.
This is where connected vehicles offer a new perspective.
By using data from millions of vehicles already travelling on the roads, NIRA's Winter Road Insights provides information about available grip based on real-world driving. With friction insights updated every 10 minutes, it offers a near-real-time view of how conditions are developing, bringing us closer to what's actually happening on the roads.
Every time a vehicle accelerates, brakes or turns, it interacts with the road surface. These interactions generate signals that can reveal information about the available grip between the tires and the road.
At NIRA, we use our expertise in vehicle dynamics to translate these signals into estimates of tire-to-road friction.
One vehicle provides a small piece of information. But when observations from millions of connected vehicles are combined, a much broader picture begins to emerge.
This is the foundation of NIRA's Winter Road Insights (WRI). Using anonymized and aggregated data from more than two million connected vehicles, WRI helps identify where grip is reduced and how friction levels vary across the road network.
Rather than relying on predictions or measurements from selected locations alone, we can add valuable insights from vehicles interacting with the road surface under real-world driving conditions.
Connected vehicle data makes road conditions visible in a new way. By turning everyday driving into friction insights, Winter Road Insights helps reveal differences in available grip between individual road sections, providing a more detailed picture of conditions across the network.
But understanding where grip is reduced is only part of the picture. Winter conditions can change quickly, making access to up-to-date information essential. With friction insights updated every 10 minutes, WRI makes it possible to follow changes in real-time providing a clearer understanding of how conditions develop.
The combination of real-world observations and frequent updates is what makes connected vehicle data particularly valuable. It offers a way to see both where reduced grip is being experienced and how those conditions are changing.
Having timely information about available grip can make a difference when monitoring and managing winter road conditions.
Friction insights can help identify sections where reduced grip is being observed and highlight areas that may require closer attention.
They can also provide useful information when evaluating winter maintenance activities. By comparing estimated friction over time, changes in available grip can be observed before and after treatment, adding another perspective when assessing road conditions following maintenance.
Looking beyond the immediate situation, observations collected over time can help reveal recurring patterns, such as road sections that frequently experience reduced grip during winter conditions. These insights can support longer-term maintenance planning and evaluation.
Together, these capabilities provide a stronger basis for understanding road conditions and making decisions informed by recent observations of available grip.
Every day, millions of vehicles travel across road networks, generating information about their interaction with the road surface. Winter Road Insights turns these observations into timely information about available grip.
It doesn't eliminate the uncertainty of winter conditions or replace other sources of road condition information. But it adds something very important: friction insights derived from vehicles experiencing the roads themselves.
And with updates every 10 minutes, those insights help us follow changing conditions rather than relying on isolated observations.
Because the real opportunity with connected vehicle data isn't simply having more information about winter roads. It's gaining a clearer understanding of what's actually happening on the roads in real time, as conditions change.