Keep ahead of the conditions with the OpenWeather Road Risk API update

Few places have such a fearsome and notorious reputation for road users as Shap Fell. This northern England location is a key road transport link between England and Scotland. During the summer months, this elevated road provides the traveler with spectacular views of the Cumbrian hills. However, during winter, the often driving rain, wind and especially snow have caused transport chaos for decades. 

Thankfully not all road locations are as severe as Shap Fell, though they are still susceptible to a wide range of weather conditions that can cause delays, disruption and increased costs for logistics organisations.

To reduce these unnecessary and often expensive surprises, we have developed our single-call Road Risk API. It gives detailed current, forecast and historical weather information as well as national alerts for any number of specified location points along a route. 

After a recent update from our team, this API also provides road temperature and road condition historical and current data for the USA and Europe territory. The condition data includes 2 different possible parameters; no report or black ice probability.  This extra information can be incorporated into a host of AI/ML applications as well as navigation, mapping and planning systems.

These new parameters can give vital assistance in planning routes for heavy haulage and logistics organisations. Even with new technologies that aid tire traction in snow and ice, being forewarned can help navigate around even the most Shap-like of road conditions. 

To gain access to the Road Risk API, simply contact our sales team, who will be happy to explain how to give your API key access.  If you do not already have an API key, one can be obtained here. Our technical documentation gives all the information you need.

After gaining access, you can start working with the API. 

Supply your road track to our system using the POST method of an API request.

The track is a set of points. Each point should have:

• Point’s coordinates (latitude, longitude)

• Date and time (Unix format) when a vehicle should reach the point

As a result, user will receive an API response with all data for each point of the track at a specific time. This information will include:

Weather temperature, kelvin;

Wind speed, meter/sec;

Wind direction, meteorological degrees;

Precipitation intensity, mm/hour;

Visibility, meters (after the recent release this is no longer given);

Dew point,  kelvin;

Alerts - sender’s name, event’s name and level of severity:

     0 - Unknown;

     1 - Green (no awareness required);

     2 - Yellow (potential danger);

     3 - Orange (dangerous weather); 

     4 - Red (very dangerous weather).

Road temperature and road state will be in the separate part of the API response:

"road": {
            "state": 2,
            "temp": 293.85
        },

Road State: After the recent release we can provide only 2 states:  0 - no report or 16 - black ice probability. Parameters are available for the USA and Europe 

The road temp is the temperature in Kelvins.

A full example of the API response can be found here.

No matter the location of your route, let the OpenWeather Road Risk API warn you of the weather conditions ahead.