Temperature prediction model of asphalt pavement in cold regions based on an improved BP neural network

Highlights: • Pavement temperature prediction model is presented with improved BP neural network. • Dynamic and static methods are presented to predict pavement temperature. • Pavement temperature can be excellently predicted in next 3 h. - Abstract: Ice cover on pavement threatens traffic safety, and pavement temperature is the main factor used to determine whether the wet pavement is icy or not. In this paper, a temperature prediction model of the pavement in winter is established by introducing an improved Back Propagation (BP) neural network model. Before the application of the BP neural network model, many efforts were made to eliminate chaos and determine the regularity of temperature on the pavement surface (e.g., analyze the regularity of diurnal and monthly variations of pavement temperature). New dynamic and static prediction methods are presented by improving the algorithms to intelligently overcome the prediction inaccuracy at the change point of daily temperature. Furthermore, some scenarios have been compared for different dates and road sections to verify the reliability of the prediction model. According to the analysis results, the daily pavement temperatures can be accurately predicted for the next 3 h from the time of prediction by combining the dynamic and static prediction methods. The presented method in this paper can provide technical references for temperature prediction of the pavement and the development of an early-warning system for icy pavements in cold regions.