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EARTH OBSERVATIONS, WEATHER RESEARCH, AND TRANSPORTATION
Remarks of
Jeffrey N. Shane
Under Secretary for Policy
The Forum on Earth Observations
Institute for Global Environmental Strategies
Washington, DC
September 22, 2004
It is a great privilege to be here today representing
Secretary of Transportation Norm Mineta at this Forum on Earth Observations. The
Secretary regrets that he could not be here, particularly after spending all day
yesterday in and around Pensacola, Florida, surveying hurricane damage at the
request of President Bush. The impact of weather on our quality of life, our
Nation’s economy, and our transportation system is not an abstract or academic
issue for any of us these days, particularly in a number of our southern states.
But the truth is that the goals and objectives you are gathered here to discuss
today are never abstract or academic at DOT. I am grateful, therefore, for the
opportunity to be here, and to share our views in more detail.
It really should come as no surprise that DOT strongly supports efforts to
improve our earth observation capabilities. We see the Strategic Plan for the
U.S. Integrated Earth Observation System, released in draft earlier this month,
as a solid step moving us in that direction. Specifically, Secretary Mineta sees
this long-term plan for creating an integrated, international earth observation
system as wholly consistent with his broader vision for the future of our entire
transportation system. That vision is spelled out in DOT’s own Strategic Plan –
one that maps out the Department’s objectives for the next five years. That
document calls for a system that is safer, simpler and smarter, and lays out
specific strategies for how we can increase mobility and improve safety while
also being good stewards of the earth’s environment.
In pursuit of those objectives, we have gone to great lengths to improve working
relationships with our federal agency partners in this area, and those efforts
have produced concrete results.
Road Safety and Weather Research
We all know that weather poses difficult safety challenges across our
transportation system, especially in terms of road safety. That’s why we have
placed such a strong emphasis on using research and technology to improve our
ability to predict changes in the weather and manage more effectively their
impact on our surface modes of transportation. To give you a sense of the
magnitude of these challenges, in 2001 there were nearly 7,000 fatalities and
over 600,000 injuries that occurred under adverse weather conditions on our
nation’s roadways. The human and economic costs attributable to these mishaps
are staggering.
At the same time, we estimate that 15 percent of traffic congestion across the
country is due to rain, snow, or reduced visibility. Weather-related delays in
metropolitan areas amount to an estimated $3.4 billion in additional freight
costs each year. The impact of weather on the safety and efficiency of our
highway system, in other words, is a powerful argument for decisive action by
policy makers and stakeholders alike.
Our Federal Highway Administration has a long history of working with its
constituents to develop effective solutions. In its early years, the focus was
on building highways—notably our Interstate Highway System. Over the past
decade, however, the agency has increasingly shifted its focus to maximizing the
potential of our existing highways by helping states operate the system more
effectively through the deployment of modern technologies. Under the leadership
of our great Federal Highway Administrator, Mary Peters, and her predecessor,
Ken Wyckle, we have made significant progress in using weather information to
improve safety and efficiency. Much of that progress has been accomplished
through the impressive technological advances we have seen in recent years, like
more intelligent traffic signal control systems as well as 5-1-1 and other
traveler information systems.
Creating a Next Generation Air Transportation System
Another mode of transportation that clearly benefits from improved earth
observation capabilities, of course, is aviation. More than half of our flight
delays are attributable to complications due to weather. Air traffic managers in
the FAA will tell you that addressing adverse weather conditions more
effectively is the single most important thing we could do to increase the
capacity of our increasingly congested air transportation system. The fact that
air traffic demands have now returned to near pre-9/11 levels and are expected
to grow steadily in the years ahead makes the need all the more critical.
That is why, earlier this year, Secretary Mineta launched a Next Generation Air
Transportation System initiative – an initiative that is designed to do nothing
less than triple the capacity of our nation’s aviation system by 2025.
The transformed system we envision will be able to handle multiples of the
current level of demand while maintaining the flexibility to deal with new kinds
of aircraft, new commercial air services, and new airline business models. For
that reason, Secretary Mineta is overseeing the preparation of an integrated
national plan to develop this system of the future. We are working with senior
leaders and staff from the Departments of Homeland Security, Commerce –
primarily NOAA -- and Defense as well as NASA and the White House’s Office of
Science and Technology Policy. Most notable in this process is that we have
already made a great deal of progress in the area of weather research, outlining
a long-term plan for the specific areas that need to be addressed and the
methods for ensuring cooperation among all the agencies involved.
The DOT/NOAA Partnership
The Next Generation initiative is just one of the reasons why I am so excited
about the strong partnership that DOT and NOAA have been building together. By
combining DOT’s understanding of our Nation’s transportation system with NOAA’s
vast scientific expertise we know we can accomplish a great deal. We are already
seeing the results of our collaboration.
For example, we are also working together to develop a high-accuracy Nationwide
Differential Global Positioning System, and are in the process of locating NDGPS
equipment at sites across the country to deliver a positioning service with far
greater precision than that available from the basic GPS signal. Accurate
positioning is absolutely essential for surface transportation, especially in
making vehicles safer and moving them through the system in a much more
efficient way.
But here’s the best part: In addition to the transportation benefits of these
NDGPS stations, we are also installing monitoring devices there to collect water
vapor data as part of NOAA’s efforts to improve weather forecasting technology.
It is a classic example of a win-win project that uses taxpayer dollars more
effectively while helping both agencies carry out their respective core
missions.
Building on that track record, we are now expanding our collaboration to address
road weather management. First, we produced a study called the Weather
Information for Surface Transportation National Needs Assessment Report – the
so-called “WIST Report.” It was released in 2002 and laid the foundation for our
coordinated approach. It marked the first time the weather community has worked
with the surface transportation community to articulate in a comprehensive way
our collective needs for weather information.
The National Research Council published a report of its own on road weather
research in January 2004, building on the WIST report and laying out both a
vision for the road weather system of the future and the research needed to get
there. Addressing the needs of our surface transportation system requires some
very specialized information. The baseline provided by the WIST and NRC reports
will allow everyone involved to make more effective contributions to the success
of this new model, and will also allow developers to make the most of their
investments in advanced surface transportation weather systems.
It has been a great privilege to work on this effort with NOAA’s superb
Administrator, Admiral Conrad Lautenbacher, just as it was to help him launch
the WIST Report. We at DOT are very grateful for his personal commitment to
improving the weather information available to transportation planners, and we
look forward to continued close collaboration with NOAA.
Emergency Transportation
Transportation is an essential lifeline for our communities, and during a
disaster it is one of the critical ingredients in helping a community get back
on its feet. To provide a centralized, effective program, DOT’s Office of
Emergency Transportation, in our Research and Special Programs Administration,
performs coordinated crisis management functions for the entire array of
potentially critical situations.
To ensure the Department’s readiness, DOT operates a Crisis Management Center to
collect, analyze, and disseminate critical transportation infrastructure
information. It makes sure that communications and other equipment are ready at
any time, trains DOT staff for disaster functions that are essential but –
thankfully -- not performed very frequently, and works with other Federal and
state agencies to ensure that the necessary relationships and protocols are in
place before the stress of disaster response begins. Improved earth observation
capability will assist the Department as it responds to these crises.
Climate Change
Another important area of interagency collaboration is in climate change
research. DOT’s Climate Change Center is cooperating with the U.S. Geological
Survey, NASA and EPA to evaluate the potential impacts of climate change and
variability on transportation systems and infrastructure along the Central U.S.
Gulf Coast.
The purpose of this study is to develop knowledge and tools that will help
transportation decision makers use environmental and climate trend information
in transportation system planning. The project will use information about
potential effects of climate change and variability on transportation
infrastructure and systems to develop tools to assist in assessing risks and
evaluating response strategies. I expect the effort to produce a template that
we can apply to a great many other regions of the country.
Conclusion
At the Department of Transportation we have an important vision: system-wide
improvements in our predictive capability that can make our transportation
system safer and more efficient under all types of adverse weather conditions.
By realizing that vision, we can help save lives and keep our economy moving
forward. We will also create a system that allows those who use our
transportation networks – drivers, shippers, transit operators, and many others
– to make more informed decisions.
By integrating intelligent weather information with intelligent transportation
technology we can deliver on Secretary Mineta’s vision for a safer, simpler, and
smarter transportation system. We look forward to working with all of you to
help make this vision a reality. Thank you again for inviting me to speak here
today.
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