At right: A Roadway Weather Information System collection station on US-2 two miles east of Brevort includes non-intrusive roadway sensors collecting roadway temperature and conditions, wind speed and direction sensors, a streaming video camera, and wireless communication equipment to report the data. Safer highways, more efficient maintenance, and putting weather information at the fingertips of motorists in Michigan are goals of a Roadway Weather Information System (R WIS) project that includes 13 weather sensor stations across the Upper Peninsula. It is a project of the Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT).

The first station was constructed in 2007 on US-2 north of the Escanaba River Bridge. The three stations in Mackinac County are at St. Ignace on I-75 south of Castle Rock Road, at Brevort on US-2 west of Wildwood Lane, and at Engadine on US-2 west of Greenwald Road. Chippewa County has one station near Rudyard, on I-75 south of M-48.

One of the Roadway Weather Information System's collection stations gathers data on temperature, wind, precipitation, and road conditions along I-75 just south of the Mackinac Trail exit near Evergreen Shores. Sensors at all these stations measure pavement temperature, pavement condition, chemical concentration, wind speed and direction, precipitation type and amount, barometric pressure, frost depth beneath the roadway, and traffic information. The stations also have live cameras and cellular data transmitters.

The system has already been helpful in scheduling crews, planning and preparing for storms, and selecting and scheduling treatments for the roadway, said Dawn Gustafson, a traffic and safety engineer from the highway department's office in Escanaba.

The equipment "can eliminate the need to manually collect frost depth information from tubes in the roadway," Ms. Gustafson said, and having the cameras in place can save staff members from driving to locations to check weather conditions.

The combination of live weather data and the camera's bird's-eye view of the areas surrounding each station will especially help plow crews anticipate which areas in the region need plow service.

Many other states already have used similar weather data collection systems, she said, including Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Ohio, Illinois, and Indiana in the Midwest.

"We were pretty much one of the only Midwest states that did not have a RWIS program before this," Ms. Gustafson said.

Anyone can access the data being collected by the stations online at www.clarussystem. com, which shows a map including the 13 U.P. stations as well as hundreds of other stations spread across the country and in Canada. Currently, live cameras at each site can be viewed by MDOT workers only, but Ms. Gustafson said the agency hopes to make the cameras accessible through its public Web site.

Keeping motorists apprised of weather conditions along busy travel routes is one of the goals of the program, she said.

The project, which has a price tag of $1.5 million, has been funded through a combination of federal stimulus funds and state transportation funds reserved for automated systems like this one. An annual fee is paid to an outside contractor to transmit, store, and post the data collected at the stations.

No stations have yet been built as a part of the weather data program in Michigan's lower peninsula, but MDOT plans to set up 12 stations there beginning this summer. One of these proposed stations will sit between the southbound on-ramp from Mackinaw Highway to I-75 and the southbound lanes of I-75 just south of Mackinaw City. The other stations are planned on US-31 near Charlevoix, on I-75 near Wolverine, I-75 between Gaylord and Grayling, M-72 east of Acme, I-75 south of Grayling at highway rest area, US-31 south of Crystal Lake, US-127 near Houghton Lake, US-131 near Cadillac, I-75 near West Branch, US 131 near Reed City, and US-10 near Ludington.