Episode 12: Taking liquids to the max, Liquid Only Routes

07/05/18 • 27 min

Agencies have been using salt brines and a variety of other liquid concoctions for years as a winter maintenance strategy. Pre-wetting stockpiles, pre-wetting at the spinner, slurries, direct application for anti-icing have been tried and true practices. Now some have taken the use of liquids to the max , and now, utilizing direct liquid applications through the course of the storm. Some would say using liquid only routes are a risky proposition throughout the storm although some states and countries abroad have been successfully running field trials with liquid only routes. Jim Hughes, State Maintenance Engineer with the Wisconsin DOT is talking winter ops with SICOP about their experience with liquid only routes.

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Previous Episode

Episode 11: Which Way Should The Snowplow Go?

Having an efficient and effective winter maintenance program is built largely on having the right resources at the right place at the right time. This begs to question, Which way should the snowplow go? Route optimization made the top-10 list of things for a world class winter maintenance program and is front and center on the minds of state members of the SICOP winter maintenance technical service program. Several state DOTs are utilizing route optimization programs and many more are considering starting a route optimization program. Kyle Lester(CO DOT), Jim Hughes (WI DOT), and Larry Gangle (ND DOT) sit down with SICOP and Talk Winter Ops and talk about their experiences with route optimization in their states.

Next Episode

Episode 13: We got big data - Now what?

Many agencies have been collecting a lot of data, GPS/AVL coordinates, RWIS, mobile observations, photos and the like. Now comes the time to ask So What? Until you do something with it its just a bunch of 1s and zeros occupying peta bytes of space. There are however great opportunities to mine these data and turn it into information that can help transportation agencies manage the system and their operations. One agency, the Iowa DOT, has take that leap and demonstrated success in turning all that data in useful information. Tina Greenfield, Iowa DOTs RWIS Coordinator, shares their experiences in working with Big Data.