Winter maintenance pilot on cycle paths 2015-2016

Winter maintenance pilot on cycle paths 2015-2016

Kaisa KomulainenMaintenance Engineer

Public Works DepartmentCity of Helsinki

Winter Road Congress 17.2.2016

Alustavia tuloksia / Kaisa Komulainen 17.2.206

Current quality standards Bike paths:

Plowed by 7 o’clock: 410 km Plowed by 10 o’clock: 1 200 km Plowed by 12 o’clock: 860 km

Plowing has to start, when layer of snow is more than 5 cm.

Alustavia tuloksia / Kaisa Komulainen 17.2.206Jari Aho

Why are we developing winter maintenance now?

One of the main objectives of the city of Helsinki is to increase the number of cyclists.

What winter maintenance quality standards are appropriate to increase the number of winter cyclists?

What are the costs of better winter maintenance?

Preliminary results / Kaisa Komulainen 17.2.2016

New route-specific winter maintenance methods

Baana – Helsinginkatu (3,1 km) Brushing New de-icing solution Granlux Potassium formate-liquid Eco-Melter

Helsinginkatu – Oulunkylä (5,6 km) Brushing Salt


Kuva: Reetta Keisanen / KSV

New winter maintenance machines


Photo: Tapio Keihänen

Photo: Pertti Grönlund / Stara

Co-operation with bicyclists No separate surveillance or quality requirements Developments of methods and the pilot in general together

with Helsinki Cyclists. About 70 cyclists to provide feedback and assess quality.

Alustavia tuloksia / Kaisa Komulainen 17.2.206

Preliminary results

Granlux and Eco-Melter More eco-friendly than salt, especially for groundwater

areas. We haven’t used Granlux or Eco-Melter diluted. This has had an effect on consumption and thus increased

the costs. Costs compared to salt are tenfold. Cyclists have reported that these materials might make

snow sticky so that the snow sticks to the bike and hampers cycling.


Anti-skid using salt When compared to using gravel, salt has to

be applied more often, which increases costs.

Works well in near-zero-temperatures. The route had a good winter maintenance

level also at very low temperatures. Salt has performed just as well as Granlux and potassium formate.

Salt has negative environmental effects and causes problems to dog paws.

We have used both a salt solution and coarse salt.


Brushing snow

Brushing is central to achieving better quality.

Brushing is about 2-4 times slower than plowing.

The new machine doesn’t have other uses e.g. in summer.

The new machine is big and long, and thus cannot be used in narrow streets.


Summary

Better winter maintenance quality is clearly more expensive than current quality. The pilot expenses are about 120 000 € for the whole winter (not including transporting snow)

Acquiring cyclist-friendly winter maintenance brushing is in central role.

The pathway is to be built with high quality, drainage needs to be well executed.

There are no considerable differences in the quality of the winter maintenance between the two methods. Because of the high costs we will continue the pilot on both stretches with salt.


Winter maintenance pilot on cycle paths 2015-2016

Engineering

Transcript of Winter maintenance pilot on cycle paths 2015-2016