Pilot Study: Pavement Visual Condition and Friction as a Performance Measure for Winter Operations

Snow and ice removal and clearing roadways after a winter storm account for major portion of roadway agencies located in snowy region’s maintenance budget. With the decreasing funds and increasing demand from the motoring public for mobility, roadway agencies are continuously looking for new innovative approaches for winter maintenance operations. One of the main focus of these approaches include performance measures for winter maintenance. This is specifically important when roadway agencies use contractors to perform winter maintenance tasks. In this study, two performance measures are studied extensively. These include, visual pavement condition behind the snow plow and pavement friction behind the snow plow. Visual pavement condition was observed and recorded into one of five categories while driving behind a snow plow. Pavement friction behind snow plow is measured using a Continuous Friction Measuring (CFT) device. Since visual pavement condition provides driver’s perception of the winter driving condition and friction measurements provide an objective measurement of the safety of the roadway under winter condition, a correlation of these provides a basic guideline for winter maintenance and performance measurement of winter maintenance. During the past winter, multiple data collection cycles were performed behind different type of snow plows along I-96 in Livingston County. These preliminary data was used to obtain relationships between winter storm severity, snow plow type and the selected performance measures.