APWA 2023 North American Snow Conference

Public works and winter maintenance organizations require a published plan to direct operations and provide metrics to measure performance to provide world-class service to stakeholders. The plan should provide the key performance indicators (KPI) that can be measured and tracked to determine the level of service by the winter maintenance team. The session will outline the three key processes of the winter maintenance plan that is designed to present KPIs to monitor performance: 

1. A detailed winter maintenance plan, including KPIs to score effectiveness based on storm intensity. 

2. Snow asset telematics to automate data collection that forms the backbone of the KPI determination. Plow status includes lane miles plowed, location of deicing material application, volume of material applied, timing of material application based on road/air temp/grip, performance per defined snow route, and storm intensity. 

3. Provide reporting and analytics to get the level of service calculation based on goals provided in the winter maintenance plan. Attendees will take away proven methods to provide near real-time measurement of the level of service, enabling management to lead organizations with a culture of continuous improvement. Real case studies of organizations committed to this process will be presented. The implementation of an automated level of service process will reap the benefits of: 

• Increased safety for your staff and the stakeholders that use your transportation network 

• Improved efficiency of labor and materials as you work 

• Real data to provide accountability to your plan 

• Sustainability as you work with the least possible environmental strain with deicing materials and reduced carbon emissions.

Front Range Community College is partnering with state and local maintenance agencies to offer a high school internship program that develops qualified public works candidates. Until now, your candidate pool probably had little or no knowledge about the work they will do or how it will get done. Our high school internship program starts with two weeks of OSHA-10 training and certification in construction or general industry. This is followed by 13 weeks of Highway 101—Introduction to Maintenance Operations, which is the revised version of our degree program course. Then students participate in a paid internship at a state or local facility for six–eight weeks, which could lead to full-time employment upon successful completion of the program. The students earn six college credits towards their associate’s degree if they continue. Classes are currently held in real-time-remote (Zoom) format, and the model is flexible to accommodate other delivery methods. This program is for non-college track seniors in their graduating semester. It allows them to gain full-time employment immediately upon graduation, and allows agencies to hire local, youthful, and knowledgeable employees.

Maintaining sidewalks during and after snow in your community may seem like a cumbersome task. Therefore many communities don't plow their sidewalks, leaving them to take a back seat to street snowplowing operations. Do we really have to plow the sidewalks? In short, yes, and, by the way, it's the right thing to do. In this presentation, attendees will learn considerations for a sidewalk snowplowing program, the responsibilities of the municipality, and tips for sidewalk operations.

The concept of Smart Cities continues to be applicable to all divisions of state and local government, with some agencies investigating what this means for them, while others are active with Smart City programs. Regardless of the stage of your agency, how does it apply to public works and, specifically, winter maintenance? This session will review examples from agencies successfully connecting their winter maintenance programs to Smart City initiatives, describe their challenges and obstacles, and explain how they reached their goals.

The presenters will focus on implementing a successful liquid program in a community with a population of less than 20,000. Different products and equipment will be discussed for the practical application of liquid deicers during winter events. Community partnerships are great tools for implementing a successful program.

By far, radar is the most used weather tool by nearly any professional making decisions about weather. Radar seems like a simple concept—the colored pixels represent precipitation, and if you loop it, it tells you which way the precipitation is moving. In reality, radar is one of the most complex weather tools a meteorologist has and requires significant training. Poor understanding of a weather radar causes supervisors to interpret the radar incorrectly and thus make bad decisions. In this session, attendees will take a fresh look at the weather radar, the best digital places to view radar images, and how to best incorporate it in the decision process using other complementary tools. The presenters will produce clear steps and actions the audience can take to ensure next winter, they are using weather radar to its full potential and making better decisions.

This session will highlight some of the challenges and confusion prevalent in the public works profession when selecting liquid deicer products. The speakers will address the science and also share personal experiences with liquid deicers.

You put a lot of time and energy into your operations to make them run smoothly. Purchasing puts a lot of time and energy into solicitations to be compliant and follow legal processes. Your goals may sometimes seem conflicting, but when leveraged effectively, you can get the equipment you need when you need it. Cooperative purchasing can help. Learn the value of cooperative purchasing, including what it is and how to use it to streamline your buying process. This session will share tools to help you maximize your use of cooperative contracts to increase the value of your spend.

An increasing number of agencies have to adapt their winter maintenance operations because of environmental concerns over chlorides in groundwater, rivers, lakes, and streams. In this session, we will examine how chlorides can impact the environment and then focus on the methods identified as being appropriate to mitigate these impacts. Specifically, these methods are taken from various variance documents that agencies must commit to in their winter maintenance operations. As such, they are to some degree "approved," and implementing them (if you are not already doing so) will allow you to “enviroproof” your winter maintenance.

This presentation is a compilation of the challenges met and addressed during the 2021-22 snow season. In addition, it is a summary of the preparations taken by the City and County of Denver to recently revamp their deployment strategy during snow events. This presentation describes how Denver responds to snow events and how success is defined.

Many agencies still rely on media sources and no observations for their weather information. While this information has improved, there are many affordable options for agencies to implement to help them. In this session, the presenters will discuss many new and existing technologies that agencies can implement to help make informed winter maintenance decisions. They will also examine how some agencies implemented and built their weather programs.

Accurate equipment calibration is a cornerstone best management practice for winter maintenance operations. Yet, many agencies do not recognize or understand its value. Attend the first session in this 2-part series for a first-hand account to understanding the “What” and the “Why” of calibration. Part 2 in the series will discuss the “How”.

Alongside the age-old debate about the difference between leadership and management, a third category of skills is required of leaders that is distinctly different from leadership or management. Almost every leader, at every level, performs at least some form of direct supervision. Having addressed leadership behaviors in 2021's series on Learning Leadership and management skills in 2022’s series on Mastering Management, the APWA Leadership & Management Committee now aims to define what supervision is and how one does it. Just like leadership and management, supervision skills can be learned and practiced to improve. APWA's supervision framework defines those behaviors into five functions, and this session will dive into what those are and how to implement them into the participant’s experience. The five functions are: Workforce engagement Enforcing standards Documentation Assigning Group dynamics

Interior Alaska was hammered with a series of snow and ice storms so epic over the 2021 winter holidays that it was dubbed “Icemageddon.” Snowfighters had to respond to the initial record-precipitation event and inches of ice on roadways that hung around for months. This session will review how snowfighters responded and kept the public informed.