APWA.net Event Detail

Date(s):

October 1, 2009

Location:

Audio/Web Broadcast

Cost:

Members: $175.00
Non Members: $225.00

Description:

Performance Measures for Winter Maintenance

HOW EFFECTIVE ARE YOUR WINTER MAINTENANCE PRACTICES?

Winter maintenance is critical to ensuring mobility and safety to the traveling public during inclement winter weather. For an agency to make the best use of their limited resources available for winter maintenance it is important that the agency be able to determine how well their storm-fighting tactics are and how good a job they are doing in their overall strategy.

This Click, Listen, and Learn Session will present how performance measures can be developed and applied in the field of winter maintenance.

There are four critical factors that have to be considered in developing performance measures in winter maintenance.

First, the severity of the storm that the agency faces must be determined. This determines how challenging the task of winter maintenance for any given storm will be.

Second, the effectiveness of the chosen tactics used to combat the storm.

Third, the effort expended in fighting a given storm must be fully and accurately measured. Furthermore, these costs need to be benchmarked, if at all possible, against cost values from other agencies.

And, fourth, the results or outcomes of the agency efforts must be measured in a reliable, objective, and repeatable way to assess strategic effectiveness. There are a number of ways in which performance outcomes for winter maintenance can be measured and these will be reviewed and discussed.

However, even having completed these four steps (which is quite an achievement) the performance results are of no value unless they are put to use.

The presentation will also discuss how these results can be used to allow an agency to improve its winter maintenance activities and make the best use of its limited resources.

After viewing this program, participants will be better able to:
* Measure how severe a given winter storm is, and how much effort they have expended in fighting that storm.
* Implement an appropriate performance measurement system, using objective and repeatable measurements
* Evaluate their winter maintenance activities in light of their performance measurements and enhance those activities to make best use of their limited resources.

This program has been approved for .2 CEUs or 2 PDHs. The form to request these credits is included in the handouts for this program. Please note there is a $5 fee per individual requesting CEUs.

Speaker:

Dr. Wilfrid A. Nixon, PhD, PE

Professor
Asset Insight Technologies, LLC University of Iowa

Wilfrid Nixon has twenty years experience in conducting research in the field of winter highway maintenance as a Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Iowa.

He conducted research under the United States Department of Transportation Strategic Highway Research Program, and has served on the AASHTO (American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials) Lead States Team for Road Weather Information Systems (RWIS) and Anti-Icing. He has performed work for a number of State Departments of Transportation in the United States relating to winter maintenance and RWIS. He is the author of more than 90 articles, papers and reports.

Nixon currently serves as a member of the Winter Maintenance Policy Coordinating Committee, a steering committee for the AASHTO SICOP (Snow and Ice Cooperative Pooled Fund) program. He was also the chair of the Transportation Research Board committee A3C09 (now AHD65) on Winter Maintenance from 1998 to 2004, and is a member of committee A5001 on the Conduct of Research. He is also serving as chair of the TRB Committee on Surface Weather Transportation (AH010).

In 2000, he was one of two FHWA representatives to travel to Argentina and Chile for a three week visit to provide help and guidance on winter maintenance issues in the Andes. In February (2008) he provided training for a group of 12 maintenance engineers from Argentina on current winter maintenance techniques. He visited Japan for two weeks in January and February 2002 as part of a joint FHWA/AASHTO scan team on the application of ITS Technology to Winter Maintenance, and returned to Japan in 2005 to continue working with colleagues there on issues relating to information technology in winter maintenance.

Nixon�s current research is focusing on uses of information in winter maintenance, particularly with regard to measuring performance and to decision making. The manner in which information flows in the field of winter maintenance operations provides opportunities both to improve strategic and tactical decision-making and to optimize the usage of scarce resources, while still focusing on the main goals of safety and mobility.

Speaker:

Richard L. Hanneman

President
Salt Institute

Dick Hanneman is President of the Salt Institute, the Alexandria, Virginia-based international trade association representing companies producing salt throughout North America and the world. The Institute advocates salt industry policy on such issues as highway traffic safety, human health and nutrition, and worker safety.

In the transportation area, Dick represents the salt industry on the Board of Directors of the American Highway Users Alliance and on the Advisory Council of the Roadway Safety Foundation. He is a member of the Transportation Research Board�s Winter Maintenance Committee, Technology Transfer Committee and Corrosion Committee and served on the National Academy of Sciences� Strategic Highway Research Program Highway Operations Advisory Committee. He also serves on the Transportation Association of Canada�s Maintenance and Construction Committee, its Environment Council and on the TAC committee that produced a Salt Management Guide and its Syntheses of Best Management Practices. His leadership helped forge a partnership between the Salt Institute and the National LTAP Association to promote improved winter maintenance training. He is a �friend� of the APWA Winter Maintenance Sub-committtee.

Dick speaks frequently and has published articles in such diverse journals as Public Works magazine, Water Conditioning & Purification magazine, and the British Medical Journal.

Speaker:

MODERATOR: Larry Frevert PE

Vice President & Nat'l Prog Dir PW
HDR, Inc.
Past President APWA

Content Questions:

Phyllis Muder
(800) 848-2792
education@apwa.net

Technology Questions:

Phyllis Muder
(800) 848-2792
education@apwa.net