Beijing will provide better meteorological services for expressway drivers, an official with the Beijing Meteorological Bureau said on Monday.
  
The city will give such services to expressway drivers via a batch of road observation systems introduced from Finland, said Liu Qiang, director of the bureau's Meteoric Observation and Safety Center, adding that 13 out of 16 such systems have been completed.
  
They systems, comprising ground and underground detectors, can offer data on road temperature and humidity, depth and temperature of seeper, snow or ice on the road, wind power, snow-melt concentration and fog visibility.
  
Liu said the systems, which were launched three years ago, are part of the metropolis' drive to build up meteorological services for the upcoming Beijing Olympic Games and to help drivers be more aware of detailed road conditions during their driving.
  
The systems can automatically collect and transmit data every minute, and the data will be updated on official the bureau's Web site every five minutes, Liu added.

(Xinhua News Agency July 24, 2007)