Parameter
Alert
Treatment
Supervisor
6
4
1
2
3
5
Supervisor
4
3
1
2
5
6
Supervisor
3
4
5
1
2
Such drastic differences in the use of the display from users with similar responsibilities
are surprising. The differences between users with other responsibilities (DOT officials,
meteorologists, and the general public), although not presented here, is even more
pronounced.
Despite their differing uses of the display, all users found the tool to be "easy and fast"
and "not too complicated." The display designer determined that all features of the
display were useful to at least one user. As a result, the designer's occasional desire to
simplify the display seems to be unwarranted.
15 IOWA DOT USER FEEDBACK
During the latter part of the field demonstration, several Lab staff met with Iowa DOT
personnel to obtain feedback on the prototype system. A sample of the feedback is
provided in this section. Following the demonstration the FHWA visited Iowa and
participated in a post demonstration meeting to gather additional feedback. The results of
that debriefing are not reported here.
Dennis Burkheimer - Winter Operations, IADOT HQ, Ames (Feb 24, 2004)
There were noticeable improvements made to the MDSS for the winter 2003-
2004 demonstration.
The garage PC's only have 196 MB of memory, which causes some slow loading
and response of the MDSS display application software.
There was some "disappointment" this year that the high resolution models only
went out 12-15 hours. The most important forecast of the day occurs at noon so
that overnight and morning plans can be made before personnel leave by 3:30
PM.
There is an ongoing desire to have frost prediction and alerts on the prototype
MDSS.
Adjustments to the blowing snow algorithm to make it more sensitive were
welcomed.
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