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フィンランド北部の
私たちの街オウルが示すように
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自転車インフラの維持管理は
一年を通して可能です
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北極圏の過酷な気候であってもです
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意思あるところに
よく維持管理された自転車道あり
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It is a bit unused while I joined contract with three clients:
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the city of Oulu, the Municipality of Kempele, and also the local State Road Administration.
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Due to the joint contract, the area borders could show no quality variations or other visible deviations.
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This contract used to consist of 125km of most important regional routes.
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Due to its success, it was later increased to 150km.
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Many of the routes are connections to and from Oulu city center.
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But there are also important ring routes and area paths.
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The total amount of bike path in Oulu region is well over 1,000km.
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And those are naturally maintained at top-quality level as well.
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The traditional snow depth limits are there.
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But in addition there are several quality promises the chosen contractor has given to make sure that we get the quality we want.
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The contractor can receive bonuses for fulfilling the quality promises or sanctions if they fail to meet them.
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Typically, the single sanction is twice as big as the corresponding bonus would be.
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There are total of 10 different quality promises.
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One of them is that the contractor and their drivers will cycle on the very path that they are maintaining.
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So far they have kept the promise well, so bonuses are to be expected.
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This has significantly improved the drivers' dedication to their work.
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It is also a quality promise that the contractor uses only zero emission vehicles when doing weather and surface checks.
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Thus here they only use bicycles and electric cars.
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They also use only Euro-6 standard tractors and only biodiesel as their fuel when doing the actual maintenance.
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More quality promises.
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No annoying tire tracks.
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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.
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This also improves the contractor's dedication to the work.
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How about the traditional snow depth limits?
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They're really tight.
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2cm of snowfall must be cleared within 3 hours.
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And the depth of 4cm must not be reached, ever.
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Not even during a snowfall, and not even for a second.
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At night from 11PM to 5AM, the depth limits are slightly higher, but this doesn't really affect or benefit the contractor.
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2cm limit basically means that when it's reached, the machine must have already started working earlier.
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It is not enough to start the engines then, since there's only 3 hours' time to clear the whole network of 150km.
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And many parts are so wide that they will need several plow rounds.
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In a normal situation, it is never allowed to exceed the maximum depth of snow, which is 4cm.
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And plowing measures should be scheduled so that 4cm never fills up.
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The only exception to this is an exceptionally heavy snowfall, which means over 20cm of snow in 4 hours.
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Which fortunately happens very rarely.
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The contractor must have enough machinery and workers to keep the path conditions within the required limits even during a _____ snowfall.
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After plowing they there must be no loose snow, slush, or snow banks on the surface that will interfere with bicycle traffic.
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No snow lumps interfering with traffic nor making the path narrower can exist on the path.
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The plowed surface must not steer the bicycle, meaning the plow teeth gap must be under 20mm.
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Not toothless blade can be used, as it would make the surface too slippery.
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And the surface must be also free of ripples.
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Maximum thickness of the hardpacked snow layer is 5cm until mid March, and then 2cm until the end of April.
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During preparation works for the spring the contractor must ensure that the hardpacked snow layer will be removed before the so-called spring time slush season begins.
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In the visibility splay area of a crossing, which is within 5m from a crossing, the maximum height of snow banks is 50cm.
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The contractor is responsible of removing any excess snow during the whole winter.
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But what if the surface starts to get too slippery?
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In the late autumn or late spring we can use a type of brine to prevent black ice, such as potassium formulate solution, which must be as environmentally friendly as possible.
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No regular salt is allowed at all.
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During actual winter we can add some sand or gravel or grit, but only if necessary.
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Some cities use so-called killer gravel, crushed rock with very very sharp edges.
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This kind of material is absolutely forbidden in our bike paths.
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The material must not cause any damage to vehicles, including bicycle tires.
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And let that sink in.
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In the contract it says: no damages to bicycles tires is allowed.
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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.
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Also we do not use overkill amounts of material and we use it only when it's needed.
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In addition to this, all further friction materials must be approved by the client.
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However, very often a surface grippy enough can be achieved by just mechanically plowing the surface with a densely toothed blade.
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Here you can see different material combinations and amounts of material per area - 2 to 4 dl/m2.
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Just a regular snow-covered surface properly plowed with good blades and machinery, even without extra friction material, can offer a perfectly good grip.
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Thus, often we do not need sand or gravel or grit on the surface at all, and everyone is happy.
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And here you can see an example of surface conditions that meet quality requirements.
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An important change to a contractors work is that they are now doing customer service.
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For the customers.
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Residents of the city, not the city client.
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Important part of this is active communication, which our current contractor Oulun Konetyö has done admirably.
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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.
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Depending on the grades they give, the contractor may receive significant bonuses or sanctions.
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The contractor must also organize winter events at the bike paths 3 times a year.
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They're giving out hot juice, snacks and collecting feedback directly from the users, meeting them face to face.
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This is a great opportunity for ____ talks.
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It is also important to pay attention to the plow blade.
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A straight blade is absolutely forbidden, as it would not bite into the snow and it would produce too slippery of surface.
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Instead we use a cut-apart toothed blade, where the distance between teeth must be under 20mm.
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Hope you enjoyed this short video.
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More detailed information about the winter maintenance contract and many other things, head on to masterclass.city. Thanks.
