2/8/2010 ABSOLUTELY NOT!!!!!! Sustainable Salting Solutions, LLC All rights reserved. Sustainable Salting Solutions, LLC All rights reserved

Transcription

1 Planning and Goal Setting: A Strategy to Increase Operational Efficiency 2010 Winter Operations Online Training i Series Center for Technology & Training Michigan Tech Transportation Institute February 8, 2010 Presenter: Mark Cornwell Principal Investigator Sustainable Salting Solutions, LLC Salt Use in Michigan.Where have we been? Can we SAFELY reverse this trend? Public Safety Is Our Highest Priority! Do we compromise public safety to reduce salt? ABSOLUTELY NOT!!!!!! 1

2 Finding The Balance Public Safety + Operating in Budget + Decreased Salt Use = Efficiency/Effectiveness Advanced Planning and Goal Setting Critical to Success! Salt Cost Increases In Michigan, salt prices have increased nearly 100% since Over the last three years salt prices have increased 24%. If that trend continues salt could be near $ per ton by 2012 How to re-allocate $60,000 this year! Assumption: 10 year average is 12,000 tons 2009/10 nominal price for salt-- --$ /10 Seasonal salt 10% = 1,200 Tons 1,200 $50.00/ton 00/t = $60, in savings $60,000 left over from winter maintenance budgets can be spent in summer activities or allocated to the acquisition of new equipment that can help deliver greater efficiency in subsequent years. 2

3 Written Snow and Ice Control Plan and Policy Documents are Essential for Winter Maintenance Agencies Authored by: Duane E. Dewey Amsler Sr. PE. AFM Engineering Services As a result of a good planning process, there will be higher and more consistent levels of service that results in increased safety, higher mobility, (in general and for emergency services) and fewer lost days for business, education, transportation and manufacturing sectors An another excellent informational article found on the Salt Institute s website. &x=13&y=9 Plan..Do..Check..Act.Re-visited! Analysis- Current Operations W/Sp/Su Establish Future Plan W/Sp/Su Verify Systems/ Calibration Su/F Compile Lessons Learned W/Sp Evaluate/ Benchmark Best Practices F/W Train Operations Personnel Su/F/W/Sp Analysis Current Operations It is critical to understand where we have been, before we can determine where we want to go. Examine all aspects of current operations: Equipment, Salt Use, Materials storage capacities, Routes, Service Levels, Historical weather data, Environmental sensitive areas, existing training programs, pavement types, ADT s., etc. Review of existing operations will uncover new opportunities for improvement. Seeking outside assistance from your local DOT representative, Local LTAP agency and other public/private sources will greatly aid in the discovery process. 3

4 Establish Future Plans/Goals First Things First Develop a plan and goals that are achievable within budgetary constraints that identify measurable benchmarks throughout the season. Develop a training program to gain buy in with ALL staff. Monitor equipment calibration, levels of desired service, costs for each event, etc. Prepare evaluation procedures for best practices. Verify Systems Is all your equipment properly calibrated? This is NOT an easy process and once complete another verification process will assure accuracy. Are your materials hitting the intended target? How much is lost to the shoulders or gutters? How much of our applications are lost? What percentage of these size particles never hits the target? Sustainable Salting Solutions LLC All rights reserved 4

5 Verification Wasted Materials Know where your materials are going! Training is Critical to any Plan s Success! Examine your existing training programs and think out of the box! *Ask your vendors to participate in training. *Use regularly scheduled maintenance activities for training. *Seek assistance from agencies such as DOT s, LTAP s, and other public/private entities. *Consider using Transportation Association of Canada s training checklist as a tool to customize your program. Benchmark.Measure.Measure.Measure Side by side comparisons of existing practices to new practices is an ESSENTIAL component of the plan. To assure success, a well constructed method for fair evaluations will need to be in place, monitored closely, and documented. Continually monitoring performance measures identifies success or failure and subsequent course correction. Before we consider a new Best Practice..Let s look at the costs! 5

6 C.A.S.E. (Comparative Analysis Spreadsheet Evaluation) Study Objective: Examine ALL the costs of four different liquid chemicals used in pre-wetting salt Rate of application: 7 gallons per ton Liquid id costs: $.10; $.89; $.92; $3.49 per gallon 12 C.Y. Tandem live bottoms with tailgate spreaders and ground speed control Sheet 1 examines ALL the costs to apply materials to the pavement. Changes in this spreadsheet flow through to the final cumulative spreadsheet! 6 pages currently in the total. This sheet examines material costs. Year to year increases are inflationary numbers and reflect actual 3 year increases. 6

7 Costs of salt/sand mixes Note: Sand clean up costs are not factored in total costs and these costs can be significant. Comparing pounds per L.M. Examines total L.M. costs serviced annually 7

8 Cumulative savings per year 300#/L.M 7 Gal./Ton #/L.M. Graphs generated from spreadsheet Determining actual costs is NOT the entire story! The REAL work follows with actual performance data! Lowest cost + Best field performance = Winner!! 8

9 References and other sources of information Federal Highway Administration American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials AASHTO Transportation Research Board Civil Engineering Research Foundation (CERF) (Highway Innovative Technology Evaluation Center. HITECH) Clear Roads org Canadian Strategic Highway Research Program (C-SHRP) Salt Institute Better Roads American Public Works Association (APWA) Pacific Northwest Snowfighters Winter Maintenance list service Very Good! Thank You! Questions? Contact information Mark Cornwell Phone: 248/ Mobile: 248/ Sustainable Salting Solutions, LLC LLC All rights All rights reserved reserved 9