PRODUCT

Winter Road Insights

Smarter road maintenance with real time data from connected vehicles.

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What is Winter Road Insights?

Winter conditions naturally pose a unique set of challenges, and winter maintenance has long relied on forecasts, fixed sensor stations, and manual observations. While these methods remain essential, they often provide a limited and fragmented view of rapidly changing road conditions. What has been missing is a broader, real-time perspective across the entire road network.

This is where Winter Road Insights (WRI) by NIRA comes in. WRI is a connected vehicle–based road condition monitoring system that continuously measures road surface conditions, accessibility, and safety during winter. Using anonymized and aggregated car data from more than two million vehicles, WRI identifies where roads are slippery, wet, cold, or exposed to changing friction conditions across entire road networks. The data is measured down to 25-meter segments and updated every 10 minutes.

The system provides real-time insights and live network status updates that support effective winter maintenance planning, follow-up of performed measures, and validation of operational quality. WRI enables safer roads, optimized resource allocation, and cost-efficient winter operations for everyone involved in winter maintenance.

Who benefits from NIRA’s Winter Road Insights?

Analysts in road maintenance – Make data-driven decisions based on real-time and historical friction data, enabling network-wide performance analysis and optimization of winter maintenance.

Project managers in road maintenance – Gain improved operational planning and control through continuous insight into winter conditions and maintenance delivery.

Road Engineers – Identify improvement areas and optimize maintenance strategies using real-world data.
On-call duty officer – Real-time situational awareness enables confident decision-making under time pressure, providing a clear understanding of current road conditions and insight into what actions to take, when, and where.
Budget allocator – Gain insight into when and where interventions are needed, supporting more efficient resource allocation and optimizing the impact of winter maintenance budgets.
The individual – Reduce uncertainty in high-pressure situations with reliable, real-time information, providing confidence that the right actions are taken at the right time.

Key capabilities of Winter Road Insights

Network-wide insights and performance analysis
The NIRA vehicle fleet provides continuous real-world data across the entire network. In the map view, you can identify slippery-prone areas and cold spots, and compare performance across the network. Statistical analysis supports evaluation methods and processes, enabling resource optimization and long-term planning.

Get access to:

Season-independent KPIs

Map of slippery-prone roads
Thermal mapping
Full history of winter conditions

Live road condition monitoring and response
Winter Road Insights provides live network status with real-time updates on current road conditions. This enables a clear understanding of how conditions are developing across the network. For the first time, immediate feedback on winter maintenance is available, making it possible to measure outcomes and improve results.

Get access to:

Online web service tool
Hazardous road warnings
Live data from passenger cars

A practical workflow—from insight to impact:

Step 1: Analyze the network

Connected vehicles continuously collect real-world data on winter road conditions across your entire network, including friction, temperature, and surface status, creating a live foundation for winter road monitoring.
Step 2: Identify critical conditions and risk locations

Detect road segments where winter conditions pose increased risk, such as low friction, rapid temperature drops, or emerging snow and ice. Filter by time period, road and environmental conditions to prioritize where attention is needed most.
Step 3: Make the decision

Support forecasting using real-time information to understand current and upcoming road conditions. Decide if and when to treat the roads, and how much to spend—enabling timely, targeted actions across the network.
Step 4: Verify impact

For the first time in history, winter maintenance can be measured at temporal and spatial scale. Monitor how conditions evolve after targeted actions and measure improvements in friction across the same segments, enabling verification of decisions and actions and supporting continuous improvement of what was previously unknown.

Use cases: Where NIRA’s Winter Road Insights makes the difference

Strategic support

Enable true performance evaluation of winter maintenance and road safety. With large-scale data collection, you can assess performance across your entire network and drive strategic, data-driven improvements.

Situational awareness

Gain a regional overview and act quickly where it matters most. Identify exactly where friction is decreasing or conditions are deteriorating, enabling more precise actions, optimized salt usage, and immediate feedback on the effects of both maintenance and changing weather.

Slipperiness alert

Receive real-time slipperiness alerts directly to operators, independent of location. Every minute counts in winter conditions, early alerts decrease the likelihood of an accident.

Road Insights:

A powerful tool for gathering actionable insights of your road network.

Learn about Road Insights

What makes NIRA’s connected vehicle data unique?

Data producer

In-vehicle software enables direct access to high-frequency signals (50–100 Hz) with end-to-end validated data.

Deep domain expertise

Advanced models interpret signals from road conditions, vehicle dynamics, and driver behaviour to reveal meaningful safety insights.

Unique friction measurement

Measures the real tire-to-road friction based on experienced conditions, delivering near-continuous friction coefficients across both low and high friction scenarios.

Large-scale connected vehicle network
Millions of connected vehicles, including fleets from partners such as the Volkswagen Group, provide broad coverage and continuous updates.

How to access NIRA’s data

At NIRA Dynamics, we make it easy for you to leverage our cutting-edge Winter Road Insight data. Choose the option that best fits your needs:

Custom analytics: Work with our experts in data science to turn data into tailored insights.

Via API integration: Seamlessly integrate our data into your own systems using our robust APIs. Access insights where and when you need them.

Through Road Insights: Access our user-friendly tool, Road Insights, designed to provide actionable insights and simplify winter maintenance planning.