オウル市の主要自転車ネットワークの冬季除雪（2022年）

Oulu, our city in Nortern Finland

shows you can maintain your cycling infrastructure around the year

even in our extreme Arctic conditions.

Where there is will, there is a well-maintained bikepath

It is a bit unused while I joined contract with three clients:

the city of Oulu, the Municipality of Kempele, and also the local State Road Administration.

Due to the joint contract, the area borders could show no quality variations or other visible deviations.

This contract used to consist of 125km of most most important regional routes.

Due to its success, it was later increased to 150km.

Many of the routes are connections to and from Oulu city center.

But there are also important ring routes and area paths.

The total amount of bike path in Oulu region is well over 1,000km.

And those are naturally maintained at top-quality level as well.

The traditional snow depth limits are there.

But in addition there are several quality promises the chosen contractor has given to make sure that we get the quality we want.

The contractor can receive bonuses for fulfilling the quality promises or sanctions if they fail to meet them.

Typically, the single sanction is twice as big as the corresponding bonus would be.

There are total of 10 different quality promises.

One of them is that the contractor and their drivers will cycle on the very path that they are maintaining.

So far they have kept the promise well, so bonuses are to be expected.

This has significantly improved the drivers' dedication to their work.

It is also a quality promise that the contractor uses only zero emission vehicles when doing weather and surface checks.

Thus here they only use bicycles and electric cars.

They also use only Euro-6 standard tractors and only biodiesel as their fuel when doing the actual maintenance.

More quality promises.

No annoying tire tracks.

In addition to front plates, they also use snow swings or snow _____s, and mostly do the work using their own workers and machines instead of subcontractors.

This also improves the contractor's dedication to the work.

How about the traditional snow depth limits?

They're really tight.

2cm of snowfall must be cleared within 3 hours.

And the depth of 4cm must not be reached, ever.

Not even during a snowfall, and not even for a second.

At night from 11PM to 5AM, the depth limits are slightly higher, but this doesn't really affect or benefit the contractor.

2cm limit basically means that when it's reached, the machine must have already started working earlier.

It is not enough to start the engines then, since there's only 3 hours' time to clear the whole network of 150km.

And many parts are so wide that they will need several plow rounds.

In a normal situation, it is never allowed to exceed the maximum depth of snow, which is 4cm.

And plowing measures should be scheduled so that 4cm never fills up.

The only exception to this is an exceptionally heavy snowfall, which means over 20cm of snow in 4 hours.

Which fortunately happens very rarely.

The contractor must have enough machinery and workers to keep the path conditions within the required limits even during a _____ snowfall.

After plowing they there must be no loose snow, slush, or snow banks on the surface that will interfere with bicycle traffic.

No snow lumps interfering with traffic nor making the path narrower can exist on the path.

The plowed surface must not steer the bicycle, meaning the plow teeth gap must be under 20mm.

Not toothless blade can be used, as it would make the surface too slippery.

And the surface must be also free of ripples.

Maximum thickness of the hardpacked snow layer is 5cm until mid March, and then 2cm until the end of April.

During preparation works for the spring the contractor must ensure that the hardpacked snow layer will be removed before the so-called spring time/season begins.

In the visibility splay area of a crossing, which is within 5m from a crossing, the maximum height of snow banks is 50cm.

The contractor is responsible of removing any excess snow during the whole winter.

But what if the surface starts to get too slippery?

In the late autumn or late spring we can use a type of brine to prevent black ice, such as potassium solution, which must be as environmentally friendly as possible.

No regular salt is allowed at all.

During actual winter we can add some sand or gravel ____, but only if necessary.

Some cities use so-called killer gravel, crushed rock with very very sharp edges.

This kind of material is absolutely forbidden in our bike paths.

The material must not cause any damage to the vehicles including bicycle tires.

Let that sink in.

In the contract it says: no damages to bicycles tires is allowed.

The material we use is either a mixture of sand and natural gravel, or crushed rock with sharp edges removed so that it's friendly for bike tires and also animal paws.

Also we do not use overkill amounts of material and we use it only when it's needed.

In addition to this, all further friction materials must be approved by the client.

However, very often a surface grippy enough can be achieved by just mechanically plowing the surface with a densely toothed blade.

Here you can see different material combinations and amounts of material per area - 2 to 4 dl/m2.

Just a regular snow covered surface properly plowed with good blades and machinery, even without extra friction material, can offer a perfectly good grip.

Thus, often we do not need sand or gravel or grate? on the surface at all, and everyone is happy.

And here you can see an example of surface conditions that meet quality requirements.

An important change to a contractors would be that they are now doing customer service.

For the customers.

Residents of the city, not the city client.

Important part of this is active communication, which our current contractor Oulun Konetyö has done admirably.

In addition to the client, quality control is also done by voluntary winter maintenance "agents," who report the maintenance quality that they experienced on a weekly basis.

Depending on the grades they give, the contractor may receive significant bonuses or sanctions.

The contractor must also organize winter events at the bike paths 3 times a year.

They're giving out hot juice, snacks and collection feedback directly from the users, meeting them face to face.

This is a great opportunity for ____ talks.

It is also important to pay attention to the plow blade.

A straight blade is absolutely forbidden, as it would not bite into the snow and it would produce too slippery of surface.

Instead we use a cut-apart toothed blade, where the distance between teeth must be under 20mm.

Hope you enjoyed this short video.

More detailed information about the winter maintenance contract and many other things, head on to masterclass.city. Thanks.