The Stanier research group at the University of Iowa has a new research project as part of the Mid-America Transportation Center. The project title is "Protecting People in Midwest Road and Transport Systems During Periods of Extreme Heat."

The project involves developing probabilistic predictions of key variables for road system safety during future decades under likely climate change scenarios. Variables like air temperature, pavement temperatures, heat stress indices, and temperatures of critical infrastructure near roads will be developed through multiscale modeling.  These will be coupled with fault tree analysis to look at the critical events that lead to heat illness for both drivers and workers on and around roads. We will examine system vulnerabilities during “simple” heat waves and during heat waves compounded with other infrastructure failures such as power outage.