Impact of integrated winter road maintenance on transport system resilience

Winter sets particular requirements for winter road maintenance to keep roads and highways open to traffic. Extreme winter conditions present risks for transport system as snowy and icy weather extends travel times, increase risks for accidents and may even restrict the use of the road. Indeed, snowfalls, low temperatures, and blizzards are identified as being the most significant extreme weather phenomena for winter time mobility and transports. Hence, winter road maintenance activities generate significant benefits to the society and contribute to the resilience of the entire system. This article discusses how the transport system resilience can be increased by deploying advanced and emerging technologies and solutions to winter road maintenance. Integrated winter road maintenance and related intelligent transport systems (ITS) enable winter maintenance vehicles to collect sensor data about road surface conditions, and transmit, analyze and utilise the data in real-time. By making use of technologies, it will be possible to increase transport system resilience, e.g. by using existing winter maintenance capacity more efficiently. In practice, integrated winter road maintenance approach enables directing the vehicle fleet to the most critical places, ensuring the correct use of vehicles, clarifying the roles of different actors, and better timing of maintenance operations.