Performance Measurement Survey Questioner
Part 1 – Introductory Questions (Area/name)
1. Please identify your Region by district name, Patrol Yard name and number, and
Highways under your jurisdiction?
2. Please estimate the percentage of highways under your jurisdiction broken out by these
Winter Maintenance Climate Zones?
a. Urban mountainous
b. Urban plains/plateau
c. Urban coastal/lake effect
d. Urban rarely winter weather
e. Suburban mountainous
g. Suburban coastal/lake effect
f. Suburban plains/plateau
h. Suburban rarely winter weather
i. Rural mountainous
k. Rural coastal/lake effect
j. Plains/plateau
l. Rural rarely winter weather
3. What are the primary surface conditions that occur on your highway and the most
influence your winter operations strategy?
(Please Rank as 1primary, 3 secondary, 5 rarely or not at all.)
a. Snowpack urban
d. Icepack urban
g. Blowing snow urban
j. Drifting snow urban
m. Freezing rain urban
p. Frost urban
s. Black ice urban
v. Other:
b. Snowpack suburban
e. Icepack suburban
h. Blowing snow suburban
k. Drifting snow suburban
n. Freezing rain suburban
q. Frost suburban
t. Black ice suburban
c. Snowpack rural
f. Icepack rural
i. Blowing snow rural
l. Drifting snow rural
o. Freezing rain rural
r. Frost rural
u Black ice rural
Part 2 – Planning/ Budgeting Questions
4. Do you have a strategy and/or policy manual governing snow and ice control
maintenance? Please attaché a copy or reference.
5. What kind of planning procedure do you/your company have to start the maintenance
season?
6. How long in advance you start planning the maintenance season?
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7. How do you to prepare for the season in case of number of units, labours, personnel,
material and resources available?
8. Please describe or attach an example of how you budget, track, and summarize snow and
ice control or winter operations costs.
a. Is this information tied to specific segment locations? Yes ____ No ____
b. Is a geographic information system (GIS) used for this information and your
maintenance management practices? Yes ____ No ____
9. What were your winter 2012/2013 snow and ice control maintenance costs in $ per lane
kilometre?
10. What were your highest and lowest annual costs in the past 10 years in $ per lane mile?
Maximum ________ Minimum ________
11. How many pieces of each equipment type does your agency own or lease?
 Plow
 Spreader only
 Plow and spreader
 All-liquid trucks
 Motorgraders
 Snowblowers
 Other
12. What type and size of truck used is currently specified for snow/ice control?
a. No. of axles
b. GVW (gross vehicle weight)
c. Horsepower
13. What percentage of your snow and ice control equipment is outfitted with the following?
a.Truck pre-wetter systems
b. Wing plows
c. Pavement temperature sensors
d. Computerized spreader controls
e. Ergonomic display and equipment controls f. Automated vehicle location (AVL)
g. Global Positioning System (GPS)
h. In-cab data collection and communication
i. Other
14. Please indicate the percentage distribution of plow blade types for your equipment.
a.% of trucks with one way blade
b.% of motorgraders one way blade
c.% of Reversible trucks
d.% of Reversible motorgraders
15. Do you have any specialized in-cab plow/wing control systems? Yes ____ No ____
16. What are your spreader capacities? Maximum _______ Average _______
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17. What type of spreader(s) is/are used in your vicinity (e.g., tailgate, zero velocity)?
18. Are your spreaders calibrated? Yes ____ No ____
a. If yes, how?
b. How often are they calibrated?
c. How do you know they maintain their calibration and perform at the specified level?
19. Do you have any computerized spreader control or data collection systems in place?
Yes ____ No ____
a. Have you had any significant experiences, successes, or difficulties with the controls?
Yes ____ No ____
20. What is/are your all-liquid truck capacity(ies)?
a. Maximum
b. Average
21. What types of deicers/chemicals/materials are used by your agency? Please indicate trade
name and describe any added corrosion inhibitors.
22. Do you apply corrosion inhibitors to your fleet? Yes ____ No ____
23. Have you changed the manner in which you apply all liquids over the past 10/5 years?
Yes ____ No ____
If yes, what prompted the action?
24. Do you feel adequate information is available to you to avoid unintended consequences
of all-liquid or solid applications? Yes ____ No ____
a. If not, what additional information or data are you required?
25. Do you use abrasives? Yes ____ No
a. If not, why?
b. If Yes, how much? How do you decide how much?
26. Have you investigated environmental concerns resulting from or not resulting from winter
maintenance activities? Yes ____ No ____
Part 3 – Management Questions
27. How do you provide winter maintenance?
a. Own forces
b. Improvement district
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c. Contract—private sector
d. Contract—other government
28. Have you documented any benefits from winter maintenance?
Yes ____ No ____ If yes, please attach.
29. Do you use performance measures for winter maintenance evaluation?
Yes ____ No ____ If yes, please attach.
30. Please describe the winter operation responsibilities and exchange between different
disciplines such as winter maintenance, traffic operations, intelligent transportation
systems, and traveler/traffic information within your agency.
31. How do you assign number of vehicles on each route to cover?
32. Do you have any back up truck/ Snow removal equipment?
33. How do you evaluate the resource used/truck numbers/time required to reach bare
Pavement?
34. How do you estimate your resource requirement?
35. How much preparation requires in advance? How long in advance you decide about the
severity of the season? What factors would you consider?
36. How do you measure severity of the storm event/ storm season? What method do you use?
37. How do you estimate the salt usage or liquid/de-icing usage?
38. What is your preferred maintenance method and why?
39. Do you have any testing method for your managers and supervisors for quality control of
the maintenance?
40. Do you have any method to estimate salt usage to control over usage?
41. Have you investigated environmental concerns resulting from or not resulting from winter
maintenance activities?
42. When would you decide to start maintenance, what are the factors that are considered in
this process e.g. temperature, precipitation, or other?
43. Please indicate the number of automated weather stations your organization accesses and
uses.
44. Does your agency own or responsible for any RWIS sites?
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45. Are any active sensors? Yes ____ No ____
a. If yes, how many? b. Are any non-contact sensors? Yes ____ No ____ c. If yes, how
many?
46. Does your agency use a deployment criteria or strategy for RWIS sites?
47. Has your agency analyzed the RWIS data, developed performance measures or cost–
benefit data?
48. Does your organization provide access to weather forecasts to winter operations decision
makers?
49. Does your organization plan for road maintenance based on evaluation of weather data
trend from weather data centres available information?
50. Does your organization have evaluation method to use weather data/information?
51. What is your Decision making process for following procedure?
 Treatment method
 Amount of material and magnitude of material usage
 Number of plowing frequency of the treatment
52. What de-icers/chemicals are used by your agency?
53. Who makes the calls for starting and ending treatment procedures?
54. How do you check/test your practice based on MTO standards/best practice?
55. How do you make sure to achieve MTO's BP standards?
56. How do you plan the patrol for (size, materials and personnel)?
57. Do you have an annual maintenance/repair plan and budget for snow fence?
58. For a given storm event, how would they respond (plow? salt?) typical storm event?
59. Based on road surface temperature, how long before the event would you start
maintenance? When do you finish?
60. Please describe your storm clean-up plans? Using a typical storm event!
61. How do you keep the consistency of the materials and maintenance?
62. What are the weather conditions and traffic effects on material and maintenance?
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63. What is the most effective factor on Highway winter maintenance?
64. Does your strategy plan include dealing with winter storms categorized as a disaster; i.e.,
beyond capability of your organization?
65. What is your familiarity with the FHWA Maintenance Decision Support System (MDSS)
initiative? Please, describe your Key involvement?
a. Stakeholder participant
b. I have heard of it
c. What is it?
d. If familiar, what is the most valuable component?
66. Do you report winter road conditions? Yes ____ No ____
a. If yes, who manages it and how is it communicated to the public?
67. Please, provide your additional comments
68.
69.
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