In cooperation with Educenter d.o.o. we presented new technologies in the field of winter service for DARS, Fraport, General Police Directorate, Slovenian Infrastructure Agency, Slovenian Railways, Association of Municipalities and towns of Slovenia and other participants.
Winter service is the battle against snow and ice to ensure traffic and road safety.
Employees must go to work, children must go to school, transporters must deliver cargo on time so that production processes run smoothly. Impassable roads due to snow and ice can have a dramatic impact on our lives, as we depend on passable and safe roads for virtually our very lives.
The digitization of spreaders, the development of wireless data transmission and the development of road sensor technology enable the acquisition of a large amount of data.
The challenge is how to best use this data for winter services. Peter Nutz, head of the winter service in the Vienna region, which has a population of 1.91 million, and head of the winter service technical committee at PIARC, says that it is also a challenge to accurately record what data the decisions were based on. “In winter work, a decision can seem completely meaningless after a few hours or the next day. If the decision-makers have a record of the data on the basis of which we made such a decision at that moment, it often turns out that the decision was justified at that moment and, given the data we had at our disposal, we could not have made a different decision. In this way, we avoid unjustified criticism as well as compensation claims in the event of accidents.” (source: slovenceceste.si)
The Riko Ribnica programme at the Winter Service 2022 conference presented the following technologies:
iSPC “Intelligent snow plough control” is a technology for intelligent attachments control. The iSPC system is a combination of a hydraulic vehicle upgrade, an ergonomic control lever with function keys and a control panel with LCD colour display.
The iSPC system is a system with many advantages:
- A new control console that allows to monitor and control what’s happening with the attachments via a camera and additional sensors.
- Electronic control and combination of the connectors now allows less corrective action at the control panel and more driver attention to the driving and what is happening on the road.
- The command console significantly changes the way the machine has worked so far, with a very clear graphical display of what is actually happening in the machine, making it easier to control, and making command selection and calibration much simpler. The control panel is more user-friendly.
- The display is also a collection point for all information on the machine’s operation, which is stored and ready for future reference.
- The great value of electronic control is also the collection of working hours, which are themselves recorded in the controller.
EpoMaster & EpoSat – “Automatic and GPS-controlled spreading system” is a professional, user-friendly, extremely precise, stable spreading system and ensures a more even treatment of icy roads.
The purpose of EpoSat is to automatically control the spreading settings based on the position of the spreader on the route via the Global Positioning System (GPS). With EpoSat, the spreader’s computer takes care of the spreading without the driver having to intervene. This means the driver can concentrate on driving the truck and monitoring traffic.
EpoWeb – online editing navigation, which can be used with an internet connection on a regular computer. The application allows to add navigation messages, modify gritting parameters and EpoSat routes in case of e.g. road works or general route changes.
Once the changes are made using the intuitive and logical application, the EpoSat routes are transferred to the individual spreaders. This can be done with a USB stick or quickly with a 4G wireless connection using the EpoData bi-directional Epoke communication tool.
EpoData – Online Data Collection is a data collection and fleet monitoring system that can be installed and used on all types of machines (sweepers, mowers and other brands of salt spreaders).
Benefits of EpoData:
- shows real-time data collection and fleet monitoring,
- provides an overview of activities and analysis options,
- allows two-way communication with the spreader, e.g. new routes or route corrections online,
- allows route management,
- standard data storage,
- Allows additional users to view.
EpoTherm – an electronic system that automatically regulates the amount of gritting. EpoTherm is a temperature-controlled spreading system that automatically adjusts the amount of spreading according to weather conditions chosen by the operator and based on continuous measurements of the road surface temperature.
Mixus AST – Spreading disc with independent mixing chamber. To achieve a good result in the fight against slippery roads, the spreading material must be distributed in the most optimal way. A good spreading pattern is very important, i.e. a good lateral distribution of salt over the entire width of the road and a sharply defined spreading pattern on the outer edges.
Two important factors for a good spreading pattern are:
- complete and homogeneous pre-wetting of the salt,
- a spreader plate that precisely distributes the desired amount of salt on the desired road surface.
During spreading, the travel speed, symmetry setting, spreading width and spreading quantity are changed. This means that the quantity and weight of material fed into the spreading disc is constantly changing. When using traditional spreading discs, the spreading pattern usually changes when the material input is increased or decreased.
Epoke’s Mixus AST spreading disc has been developed to compensate for changing material supply and thus meet the high-tech requirements for an optimal spreading pattern.
Watch highlights from this year’s Winter Service Conference in the video below.
