The UK has been experiencing its coldest winter for over a decade. Frost and ice have been a hazard for commuters since the beginning of the winter and, in the last week, several deep falls of snow have caused chaos on the transport networks.
Vaisala supplies approximately 40% of the road weather information systems and services used by road maintenance professionals around the globe today. Vaisala has over 1000 road weather stations installed in the UK, reporting observed road surface and atmospheric conditions directly to highway maintenance operators. The data is managed through a central computer system at the Vaisala data centre in Birmingham.
Vaisala's team has been working proactively to ensure that roadside weather station networks and the Data Centre have continued to deliver critical information on present and predicted road conditions to UK Highway Engineers.
Record numbers of users accessing data
"We have seen record numbers of professional users accessing the Vaisala IceNet display software over this period. On Monday 2nd February, when snow paralysed parts of south-east England, over 75 000 requests for data were made by IceNet users. In total, 743 different users accessed IceNet on this day. On a normal day, we would see approximately half that number of users accessing the system," says Phil Griffiths, Data Services Manager of Vaisala Ltd, based in Birmingham.
The Data Centre has functioned without problems under the load.
Further information:
Phil Griffiths
Data Services Manager
Observation Services, EMEA
phil.griffiths (a) vaisala.com