From 1 October to 15 May, a 24-hour dedicated winter maintenance service operates on all Scotland's trunk roads.
To carry out winter service we have:
Photographs of the types of vehicles we use to help clear snow, storage facilities for salt and a range of other images relevant to our winter service are available on Flickr.
Precautionary Treatments
To prevent snow or ice forming on roads, gritters provide precautionary salt treatments to roads, depending on the forecast weather conditions. Gritters are also fitted with ploughs when snow is forecast. There are 90 pre-cautionary treatment routes.
The Gritters & Winter Salt Treatment Map provides details of planned winter salt treatment across Scotland following the mid-day forecast for that period. You can view all routes for which winter salt treatments are either planned or not planned. Further information is also available relating to the number of winter service vehicles currently active on the network. This information is updated daily.
Winter Patrols
Winter Patrols are in addition to precautionary treatments undertaken on all trunk roads. Winter Patrols are deployed to monitor conditions, provide salt treatments and plough as required.
Winter Patrols operate on the busiest roads (Category A) and those trunk roads that experience the severest winter weather (Category B) when temperatures are forecast to be low and there is a risk of ice forming. To view the location of Category A and Category B winter patrol routes see the Winter Patrols Routes Map. Patrols operate from early morning through to the end of the morning peak period and at other times of the day when severe wintry weather is forecast, at the discretion of the Operating Company winter managers.
Patrol vehicles are fitted with ploughs when snow is forecast. They are also equipped with mobile road surface temperature sensors. These sensors allow winter decision makers to monitor, in real-time, the road temperate at the location of each patrol gritter.
For winter 2011-12 there are 42 Winter Patrol routes in addition to the 90 Precautionary Treatment routes on trunk roads. This is an increase of 23 patrol vehicles from the start of winter 2010-11.
All motorways have a maximum 30 minute response time to winter incidents when the patrols are deployed. Response times for Category A Patrols operating on the busiest trunk roads vary from 30 to 60 minutes.
On all other trunk road routes, when an immediate response is required, a gritter will commence treatment on the route within 60 minutes.
The winter fleet for trunks roads has a total of 190 vehicles available for spreading salt and ploughing. The remaining gritters are available to provide support to the precautionary treatment and patrol vehicles as well as to cover break downs and essential maintenance. When severe wintry weather is affecting the whole country all available vehicles are deployed.
Footways
There are 29 units of footway specific plants available for footway treatment across Scotland's trunk road network, these vary from tractor ploughs and gritters to the use of ‘pickups', allowing for manual clearance/gritting.
For details of footway plants currently active on the trunk road network see Gritters & Winter Salt Treatment Map.
Footways, footpaths and cycle facilities alongside the trunk road network are organised into three categories within the winter service plans, see Winter Decision Making to access the plans.
Operating Companies carry out pre-treatment to all category A footways, footpaths and cycle facilities when temperatures are forecast to fall to less than or equal to 1 degree Celsius, or when snow conditions are expected. A combination of footpath spreaders and hand spreading will be used to pre-treat these as required.
Operating Companies clear category A and B footways of snow and ice by 8 am, or within two hours of snow ceasing to fall during the period 6 am hours to 6 pm. Operating Companies also clear category C footways of snow and ice by 5 pm the following weekday.
Operating Companies will allocate resources based on network condition reports received from winter drivers who have been carrying out ploughing at affected locations, or from any other third party report where footway conditions have been identified as requiring removal of snow or ice.
Specialised Plant and Innovative Solutions
For treatments in extreme cold, Transport Scotland has developed guidance for the Operating Companies on the use of alternative de-icers that work at temperatures below which road salt (sodium chloride) becomes less effective. The guidance advises the trunk road operating companies on the storage, management and application of a range of alternative de-icers. Transport Scotland has obtained stocks of EcoThaw, Safecote and Magnesium Chloride.
Snow blowers are used by the Operating Companies to remove particularly deep snow accumulations, caused by prolonged snow falls or by drifting.
Specialised plant will also be made available to the Scottish trunk road for the first time for winter 2011-12, to increase our winter capability, including:
When the gates are closed, ploughs and blowers are able to clear the snow within the closure until it is felt safe by the police to open the road again.
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