Case Study: Alaska Department of Transportation achieves safer, lower-cost winter road maintenance with Microsoft Corporation Azure IoT

Alaska Department of Transportation - Customer Case Study

The Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities needed a better way to manage dangerous winter road conditions across a vast, highly variable state. After the 2010 “Icepocalypse” and repeated freezing-rain events, the agency sought hyper-local weather and pavement data to improve snowplow deployment, avoid unnecessary maintenance costs, and keep roads safer. It worked with Microsoft Corporation through Azure-based IoT technologies and the Fathym WeatherCloud solution.

Microsoft Corporation helped implement WeatherCloud on Azure IoT Hub, Azure Stream Analytics, Azure Cosmos DB, and other Azure services to collect and analyze data from mobile road sensors mounted on maintenance vehicles. The result was faster, more accurate, ground-level decision-making that made crews more proactive, avoided unnecessary truck deployments, improved winter storm response, and saved Alaska hundreds of thousands of dollars each year; the agency also reported avoiding accidents during a 2016 freezing-rain event and plans for broader rollout.

Alaska Department of Transportation

Daniel Schacher

Maintenance Superintendent