Winter Travel
How do we do it?
The Highway Operations Control Centre (HOCC) is staffed 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, to co-ordinate work on the highway network. It is fully equipped to monitor the effects of winter weather on our roads.
The technology includes a network of roadside ice detectors at strategic locations, which provide information on actual road conditions and are used to help predict when ice and snow may occur. Radar and satellite images are used to track rain and cloud cover across the county, and we have close links with our specialised weather forecasters.
- Extract of Winter Service Plan
(9KB - pdf help) and Policy (199KB - pdf help)
This means
- Precautionary salting routes that are freezing can be identified and treated.
- Most effort can be directed to the worst affected areas.
- An efficient, cost effective and environmentally sensitive winter service is provided which minimises salt usage.
What we do
- Undertake precautionary salting on major roads when there is a risk of ice or snow.
- Monitor road conditions and direct resources to where problems are occurring.
- Clear the major routes of snow.
- Provide roadside salt bins and bags for self help.
- React to highway flooding, and fallen trees.
- Keep delays to a minimum.
What we are unable to do
- Undertake salting or other work on the motorway or trunk roads as these are the responsibility of the Highways Agency.
- Salt all roads as this would be an enormous and costly task.
- Always keep roads free of ice and snow.
Salting the roads
When do we salt
Often you will wake up to find frost on your car but will see that the roads have not been salted. This is because the decision is based on road and not air temperatures.
Salting is usually completed before freezing but rain may occasionally delay treatment leaving roads liable to freezing until they are salted. Salting will take place:
- When roads may be wet and road temperatures are forecast to be at or below freezing.
- When snow is forecast, but it takes time and traffic for salt to melt snow.
Where we salt
Over 2,700 km (1,700 miles) of roads are on the precautionary salting network shown on the Salting Map (467KB - pdf help). This includes major roads and routes to larger settlements, as well as accesses to emergency services such as hospitals, fire stations etc, to make travelling as safe as possible. BUT remember 80% of roads are not routinely treated.
