Abstract Manager

The transportation systems in Canada are facing challenges due to global climate changes requiring adaptation to recurring extreme weather events. According to "Canada's Changing Climate Report," annual mean precipitation —one of the extreme weather conditions indicators— has increased on average [1]. Under extreme weather conditions, transportation systems suffer unexpected disruptions and increased risk of accidents that will affect the reliability of the system and businesses providing delivery services. In winter, the freeze-melt-freeze cycles formed by precipitation and temperature fluctuations make the transportation network fragile and put the safety of all drivers at risk. Canada has nearly 30% of its car accidents on snowy or icy roads and 5% during winter storms.

As part of our study, we selected extreme weather factors, such as snowfall, temperature, precipitation, and wind gusts [2]. We chose them based on their tendency to cause extreme weather conditions, their frequency in our case study, and their impact on road conditions and transportation. "Extreme" weather events are defined by one or more factors significantly above historical ranges.

Calgary, in Southern Alberta, is an exemplary Canadian city that suffers from freezing winters, in which almost two months of the year are classified as extreme. Therefore, we chose Calgary as our case study to illustrate how weather conditions affect traffic conditions, transportation systems, road transportation in particular, and the movement of trucks. To achieve this, one of our main contributions is utilizing GPS trajectories as a complementary source for identifying patterns that may go unnoticed in the truck's behavior analysis. We also reclassified the extreme weather factors in terms of their impact on the transportation system and analyzed their correlation with truck behavior using a data-driven approach.

We collected three following datasets for 2019: 1) weather data: collected weather phenomena on an hourly and daily from weather stations throughout the city, 2) traffic count data: comprised of 15 minutes of observations of traffic volumes for 16 permanent stations, and 3) GPS coordinates, speeds, and headings associated with each truck for 1 minute each.

This work aimed to understand and evaluate the impact of extreme weather conditions on transportation systems in Calgary. Our findings suggest that adverse changes in weather conditions, even if they are within safe thresholds and in a small amount, indicate extreme weather conditions. It is also essential to highlight that the intensity of their impacts varies from weekdays to weekends when studying behaviors.