Talkin Winter Ops

4th National Briefing on Winter Maintenance and Road Weather give organizations working in the severe weather and maintenance operations space an opportunity to showcase their recent efforts to advance the state of the practice through collaboration, research, technical support, and implementation.  This briefing features the Transportation Research Board Road Weather Committee AKR50. This briefin...

4th National Briefing on Winter Maintenance and Road Weather give organizations working in the severe weather and maintenance operations space an opportunity to showcase their recent efforts to advance the state of the practice through collaboration, research, technical support, and implementation.  This briefing features the Transportation Research Board Winter Maintenance Committee. This briefin...

4th National Briefing on Winter Maintenance and Road Weather give organizations working in the severe weather and maintenance operations space an opportunity to showcase their recent efforts to advance the state of the practice through collaboration, research, technical support, and implementation.  This briefing features the Maintenance Decision Support System Pooled Fund Study. This briefing ser...

4th National Briefing on Winter Maintenance and Road Weather give organizations working in the severe weather and maintenance operations space an opportunity to showcase their recent efforts to advance the state of the practice through collaboration, research, technical support, and implementation.  This briefing features the Clear Roads Pooled Fund Study. This briefing series is produced in colla...

4th National Briefing on Winter Maintenance and Road Weather give organizations working in the severe weather and maintenance operations space an opportunity to showcase their recent efforts to advance the state of the practice through collaboration, research, technical support, and implementation.  This briefing features the Aurora Pooled Fund Study. This briefing series is produced in collaborat...

4th National Briefing on Winter Maintenance and Road Weather give organizations working in the severe weather and maintenance operations space an opportunity to showcase their recent efforts to advance the state of the practice through collaboration, research, technical support, and implementation.  This briefing features the Winter Weather Management Technical Service Program - SICOP. This briefi...

4th National Briefing on Winter Maintenance and Road Weather give organizations working in the severe weather and maintenance operations space an opportunity to showcase their recent efforts to advance the state of the practice through collaboration, research, technical support, and implementation.  This briefing features the Maintenance Operations Technical Working Group. This briefing series is...

4th National Briefing on Winter Maintenance and Road Weather give organizations working in the severe weather and maintenance operations space an opportunity to showcase their recent efforts to advance the state of the practice through collaboration, research, technical support, and implementation.  This briefing series is produced in collaboration with the AASHTO Maintenance Committee, the Mainte...

When your agency is responsible for vast amounts of infrastructure and performs hundreds of activities with thousands of employees having a robust management information system is imperative.  On this episode Michael Middleton of the Missouri Department of Transportation and Project Director for MoDOT Management System talks about the development and implementation of their new maintenance managem...

Management of salt and salt reduction isn’t solely on the shoulders of maintenance operations.  In many cases salt use is necessary to address problematic areas that maybe could have been mitigated with a more winter sensitive design.  On this episode were visiting with Connie Fortin, Todd Hubmer, and Chris Chromy of Bolton & Menk on their approach with a new perspective on designs to optimize...

As soon as that first snow plow was attached to a horse drawn wagon folks have been looking a other fuels to accomplish the winter maintenance mission for a variety of reasons including performance, availability of fuels, or environmental considerations.  What defines an alternate fuel depends on your current situation with regards to fleet, engines, and powertrain.  A recently completed Clear Roa...

As soon as that first snowplow was attached to a horse drawn wagon officials have been looking at other fuels to accomplish the winter maintenance mission for a variety of reasons including performance, availability of fuels, or environmental considerations.  What defines an alternate fuel depends on your current situation with regards to fleet, engines, and powertrain.  A recently completed Clear...

Every 4 years the Transportation Research Board sponsors an International Road Weather and Winter Maintenance Conference where winter maintenance professionals gather to learn about emerging technologies, new strategies, the latest technology, and current research for responding to severe weather events and winter maintenance.  After a pause due to the pandemic this conference is happening once ag...

For over 40 years we have sought after a measure of friction during winter events to determine if additional treatments were required.  Over the decades the science, sensors, and computing power have advanced to the point that friction or grip is making its way into winter operations.   On this episode we explore some cutting edge work in world of winter road friction.  Lead Statewide Snow & I...

Just because a winter storm is over and mobility restored doesn’t necessarily mean that your done with the impacts of weather.  Moisture and water leftover from winter combined with freezing temperatures and loads can cause problems for your pavements and roadside long after the storm is over. Greg Duncan has many years of experience with the Tennessee DOT and now with Applied Pavement Technologie...

NCHRP Project Report 889 details Performance Measures in Snow and Ice Control Operations.  Caleb Dobbins, SICOP Chair from New Hampshire DOT, is working to move the material presented in this report from research to reality through an NCHRP 20-44 project conducting a series of implementation seminars to help states with their implementation goals. Caleb explains snow and ice control performance me...

Knowledge transfer plays a critical role in advancing the state of the practice and conferences and expositions play an important role in knowledge transfer.  The Purdue Road School Conference and Expo have been playing a role in knowledge transfer since 1913.  Listen in as Jeremy McGuffey, Indiana DOT, tells us about the Road School and how you might become involved. Find more information about t...

Everyday folks out there are coming up with better ways to do business.  It might be a mechanic coming up with fix to solve a problem for an operator  - to a research project that could fundamentally change the way we do snow and ice control.  The thing is, if you can’t move this new idea from a one off - or a great research concept to reality you stay stuck in the status quo. On this episode we a...

On this episode we are going to introduce you to three programs designed to introduce K-12 students to a variety of science and engineering concepts used by DOTs and highway maintenance.  AASHTO’s TRAC™ (Transportation and Civil Engineering) & RIDES (Roadways in Developing Elementary Students) outreach programs are designed for educators to use as part of their Science, Technology, Engineering...

Maintenance operations adapted quickly in lots of ways we never thought we could due to the pandemic.  On this episode we’re visiting with Joe Bucci, State Highway Maintenance Operations Engineer for the Rhode Island DOT to learn about some tools they use to help keep the paperwork flowing while the snow plows are rolling.  The application they utilize to manage and coordinate over 400 vendors dur...

Usually, when you mention winter maintenance and road weather the mind conjures up images of those northern states where winter comes in October and hangs around till April.  but there are plenty of states across the south that have their hands full with all kinds of road weather challanges.  On this episode we’re visiting with Kevin Duby, Arizona DOT’s Statewide Road Weather Manager about his sta...

Listen in as SICOP Talks Winter Ops with Randi Feltner, Kentucky Transportation Cabinet Road Weather Program Manager about crowd sourcing in Kentucky. In 2014 the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet began a program of crowd sourcing data from motorists from a variety of sources to aid in their delivery of mobility across their network especially during sever weather events.  Providing extra sets of ey...

Listen in as SICOP Talks Winter Ops with Tony Coventry of the FHWA’s Road Weather Management Program and Kyle Garrett of Synesis Partners about the Integrated Modeling for Road Condition Prediction or IMRCP. When it comes to road weather management there have been a few major advances in the way agencies manage roadway networks during weather events.  The latest under developed through a series of...

SICOP Talks WInter Ops with Andrea Bill from the Wisconsin Traffic Operations and Safety Laboratory at the University of Wisconsin, Madison as she discusses the latest research into use of salt brine.  Wisconsin DOT has been working hard to promote the use of liquids in winter maintenance operations.  In 2021, the results of a 2-year research project into the use of salt brine was published.  Andr...

When a snowplow is involved in a crash there can be injuries to drivers and other motorists as well as damage to the snowplow that can take it out of service.  In winter some agencies can experience up to 10% reductions in equipment and operators.  To help address this Montana DOT advanced a project through Clear Roads Pooled Fund Project to look at the causes of crashes involving snowplows and de...