An exploratory study of winter road maintenance and the use of vehicle data

Sammanfattning: The Swedish road network is maintained by the Swedish Transport Administration, municipalities, and entrepreneurs with the goal of keeping the roads in satisfactory condition for traffic. The road operators are responsible for different roads and have several legislations that regulate construction and operation. One important aspect of winter road maintenance is the monitoring of the road situation ahead in order to call out resources for preventive measures. This study is performed at the company NIRA Dynamics with the purpose of going towards more digitized winter road information. The study explores different winter maintenance organizations in Sweden, investigates the importance of the information needed to be able to detect when roads are deemed too risky, and tries to gain an understanding of how the vehicle data provided by NIRA Dynamics best can provide a service for the winter road maintainers. This study is based on eight semi-structured interviews, user-tests aswell as a literature study. The findings of the study show that different winter maintenance organizations can differ a lot depending on the size and governing policies of the municipalities or entrepreneurs. The main differences can be found in their requirements and their method of monitoring the road situation ahead. The findings also show that the vehicle data is promising and has the potential to optimize and improve the overall winter maintenance planning. However, implementing and understanding the vehicle data in a real-world context requires collaboration from the different organizations to fulfill its value.