On-vehicle weather monitoring from Lufft

Why have one weather station when you can have 10 vehicle-mounted units? That’s the message coming from 6478 Lufft’s booth at ITS America’s 25th Annual Meeting and Expo. Thomas Stepke, CEO of Lufft USA, said 10 of its vehicle-mounted Mobile Advanced Road Weather Information Systems (MARWIS) can be purchased for the price of one traditional static unit. “With ten sensory moving around the roads, an authority can build up a more comprehensive picture of road conditions in an area than a single stationary sensor,” he said.

Last winter eight DOTs trialled the units mounted on vehicles including buses and supervisors’ cars as well as snow ploughs and gritters, some of which travelled 4,000 miles over the winter period.

The unit’s in-cab readout shows road temperature, condition and grip, water height and ice percentage. In the future Stepke predicts similar sensors will be built into many vehicles as standard fitment.