November 2014 - March 2015

The third test field campaign has taken place

As usual, also this year the official beginning of winter for traffic and transport coincides with the implementation of the obligation to use winter tyres or have snow chains on board. As in other Italian provinces, in the Province of Trento this starts on November 15th. This key date has represented the official beginning of the first large-scale trial phase of the CLEAN-ROADS project.

What has been done until now?

In the past months a complex system has been developed, which allows a selected team of road operators to be informed in real time about the conditions of the road surface of extra urban roads in the province. But it's not just that: also local travellers have started to have a range of up-to-date information about the conditions of the monitored areas on hand, easily accessible on the portal Viaggiare in Trentino and now on this website as well. This information will help them in the future to better plan their journeys and thus contribute to guarantee maximum efficiency and safety regarding traffic in winter.

How can local travellers concretely contribute to the project?

Two active forms of participation are envisaged:

  • A questionnaire, which can be compiled here. It takes up the essential parts of last winter's questionnaire. It aims at gathering practical proposals and comments from the population to improve and elaborate the information services offered.​
  • A photo campaign, aimed at collecting the most expressive pictures on the subject of "winter traffic" taken by travellers. This will happen via the twitter channel of the Road maintenance agency of the Autonomous Province of Trento (@cleanroads). Photos will be then published on the project blog (https://cleanroads.wordpress.com/).

 

How exactly does the system CLEAN-ROADS work?

Regarding the monitoring, the CLEAN-ROADS system can be described as following:

  • 6 fixed monitoring stations, installed at the following sites:
    • Cadino (already in action during the last winter season);
    • Lavis (near the road maintenance depot);
    • San Michele;
    • Rocchetta;
    • Acquaviva;
    • near the bridge over the A22, at the level of the Trento North freight village.
  • 1 system to measure the street temperature for creating thermal maps, which is installed on a road maintenance vehicle equipped for this purpose

Also this year, on the homepage of Cadino, a complete system for the monitoring of air quality and street washouts will be available. This will allow the further exploration of the environmental aspects associated with the use of road salt. The environment is the central part of this project: beyond gaining a better understanding of the effects of such salt-use at the local level, the main goal is to show that it is possible to maintain the same level of road safety, while at the same time protecting the environment near roads with more care.

All data are remotely collected and continuously analyzed and evaluated. They are expected to provide an up-to-date picture of the critical conditions and furthermore to give an outlook on the future regarding possible traffic risks. The team of road operators involved in the project has the possibility to access this range of information in an easy and immediate manner through a user interface which helps them with choosing adequate interventions.