Warm to change, road managers told

12 September 2007
 
Winter service managers need to be more receptive to change and allow on-the-ground operators additional input into the equipment they use each day.

Speaking at Surveyor’s Cold Comfort Conference this week, Wilf Nixon, professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Iowa, said that on the ground, operators were best placed to see what needed to be done to improve effectiveness within the local authority and help develop strategy.

Prof Nixon was giving an insight into how winter service delivery worked in the US. He said the diversity of techniques used there was due to the lack of federal rules, and the different needs of each state. When asked what aspects of the American approach could be best utilised in the UK, he said that winter service in the US was more willing to take on new technology, even if it took time to get it fully integrated.

‘In the States, we tend to see change over a period of around five years. In the first year a department might buy one of a new type of unit. If it proves successful, then the following year, it might buy three to five, and by five years it would have many units,’ he said. He also pointed out the importance of training and assessing progress to integrate new techniques.
‘These are necessary, but we have to be sure we’re using the right methods. It’s no good sending people away for a training day if all they do is fall asleep and learn nothing,’ he said. During his speech Prof Nixon showed examples of operator-modified equipment and explained how these adaptations were often then picked up by others in the industry.

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