Minnesota Road

The Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) in the US is in the process of testing a crowdsourcing application in an effort to improve road condition reporting.

With the new Citizen Reporting application in place, motorists will be able to update winter weather road conditions on the state’s 511 system.

Minnesota is said to be the fifth state to adopt the application, which would initially focus on roads during winter.

The soft launch of the new Citizen Reporting is expected to take place in April by the regional transportation management centre, which will initially invite MnDOT employees to post their experiences on routes they travel.

"We suspect that citizen reporters will be similar in ethic to the kinds of people who volunteer to be weather spotters."

In order to participate, the employees should first take an online training module and then register their common routes.

MnDOT transportation programme specialist Mary Meinert told Crossroads: "We suspect that citizen reporters will be similar in ethic to the kinds of people who volunteer to be weather spotters."

511 system coordinator Kelly Kennedy Braunig said current MnDOT maintenance crews report road conditions.

"We try to explain on the website that we only update from 3am to 6am, from 3pm to 6pm Monday through Friday and as road conditions change, but we still get many emails requesting more frequent road condition information."

The latest 511’s online programme and mobile app are accessed by more than 5,000 people a day during the winter.

MnDOT’s construction and maintenance offices provide the data, and the real-time information is available for all of Minnesota.

Image: The Citizen Reporting application will initially focus on icy roads. Photo: courtesy of Minnesota department of transportation.