Wish list (METRo)

This page is for the feature that we want to be implemented in METRo. This does not mean that they will be implemented, it is a list to indicates what the people want for the future of this software.

List
Reason: METRo roadcast of surface state on the salt road is not correct because freezing point of water is below 0 °C. Another approaches of including salt parameter into METRo may also be considered.
 * Include prediction of freezing point of water into forecast XML file (optional parameter). Consideration of this parameter in roadcast of surface state.

Reason: not all meteorological forecasts and stations have air temperature and dew point on 1.5 m height.
 * Ensemble forecast: to see differents effects and scenario (snow plow);
 * Port of METRo code to Windows(tm);
 * Implement MM5 and/or WRF NWP models in METRo modeling system;
 * Creation of a .deb files;
 * Minimum day and night windspeed (in m/s) can be specified in the input. See task 5081.
 * Local time zone instead of eastern time zone is used to determine day and night. See bug 9042.
 * Include height of the air temperature and dew point sensors into station XML file. Consideration of this in calculations.

Reason: some studies indicate that vehicles have significant influence to road surface temperature. -> Starting in version 3.2.7, it is possible to include directly the anthropogenic flux in the forecast file. The releation between the number of cars and the resulting flux is left to the user's discretion.
 * Use the solar flux and infra-red fluxes in the atmospheric forecast file instead of the derivation of data with the cloud coverage;
 * *Include number of predicted vehicles into forecast XML file (optional parameter; similar as flux parameters). Consideration of this parameter in calculations (for start maybe just automatically increasing wind speed, when numbers of predicted vehicles is large enough).

Reason: significant less influence of flux parameters in case of low sky-view factor.
 * Include sky-view factor (0-1) into station XML file. Consideration of this factor in flux calculations.

Reason: not all stations measures sub surface road temperature on 40 cm depth.
 * Include depth of the sub surface temperature sensor into station XML file. Consideration of depth parameter in calculations. Accepting just reasonable values (i.e. from 20 to 60 cm).


 * Include a shadowing effect that would affect the solar flux during the day in function of the position of the sun. A shadowing module would need to know the position of the sun in the sky as a function of time, the high and position of objects around the road. With this, a variant shading factor could be derived and use throughout the day.
 * Creation of a makefile to install/uninstall METRo;


 * A mechanism to locally configure the exposure of a site/location to direct sunlight (shading effects). This could be an entry in the "station configuration" xml file (i.e. array of angle intervals of the obstacles - METRo is taking care for shadow calculations regarding current position of the sun).