Thread by @pekkatahkola

A better thread of #wintermaintenance of #Oulu 🇫🇮 main #bicycle routes: General info, quality requirements, control & implementation. Oulu shows you can maintain your #cycling infra round the year even in extreme conditions. Where there’s will, there’s a bike path! 1/x

It’s a bit unusual joint contract with two municipalities @oulunkaupunki & @KempeleenKunta and state road adminstration @POPELYkeskus. Due to joint contract, the area borders will show no quality variations or other visible deviations. #MeanwhileinOulu 2/x

This contract consists of 125 km of most important regional routes. Many of them are connections to/from #Oulu city center, but there are also important ring routes and areal paths. The total amount of bike paths in #Oulu region is over 1000 km, naturally maintained as well. 3/x

Quality requirements: The traditional snow depth limits are there, but in addition there are several quality promises the chosen contractor has given, to make sure that we get the quality we want. 4/x

The contractor can receive bonuses from fulfilling the quality promises, or sanctions if they fail to meet them. Typically, a single sanction is twice as big as the corresponding bonus would be. There’s a total of 10 different quality promises. 5/x

One of the quality promises is that the contractor and their drivers will cycle on the very paths they maintain. So far, they’ve kept the promise well, so bonuses are to be expected. This has significantly improved the drivers’ dedication to their work. 6/x

It’s also a quality promise that the contractor uses only zero-emission vehicles when doing weather and surface checks. Thus, here they use bicycles and electric cars. They also use only Euro6-standard tractors and only biodiesel as their fuel.📸 facebook.com/oulunkonetyo 7/x

More quality promises: No annoying tire tracks. In addition to front blades, they also use snow slings and mostly do the work using their own machines instead of subcontractors. This also improves the contractor’s dedication to the work. 8/x

How about the traditional snow depth limits? Pretty tight. 2 cm of snowfall has to be cleared within 3 h and a depth of 4 cm must not be reached. Not even during a snowfall. Nighttime (23-05) the depth limits are slightly higher but this doesn’t really benefit the contractor. 9/x

2cm limit basically means that when it’s reached, the machines must already have started working earlier. It’s not enough to start the engines then, since there’s only 3 hours to clear the whole network of 125 km, and many paths are so wide that they need several ploughs. 10/x

In a normal situation, it’s never allowed to exceed the max depth of snow (4 cm): plowing measures should be scheduled so that 4 cm never fills up. The only exception is exceptionally heavy snowfall (over 20 cm in 4 hours), which fortunately happens very rarely. 11/x

The contractor must have enough machinery and workers to keep the path conditions within the required limits even during a continuous snowfall. After ploughing, there must be no snow, slush or snowbanks on the surface, that would interfere with bicycle traffic. 12/x

No snow lumps interfering with traffic nor making the path narrower can exist on the path. The ploughed surface must not steer the bicycle (the plough teeth gap must be under 20 mm). No toothless blade can be used. The surface must be free of ripples. 13/x

Maximum thickness of the hard packed snow layer is 5 cm until 15th March, and then 2 cm, until end of April. During preparation works for the spring, the contractor must ensure that the hard packed snow layer will be removed before the springtime “slush season” begins. 14/x

In the #visibility #splay area of a crossing (within 5 m from a crossing) the maximum height of snow banks is 50 cm. The contractor is responsible of removing any excess snow during the winter. 15/x

Originally, we had an intermediate tweet here, but now I'll just have some #Pätkis instead 😋😋
15b/x

If the surface starts to get too slippery? In the late autumn or late spring we can use a type of brine to prevent black ice, such as potassium formate solution, which must as environmentally friendly as possible. No regular salt is allowed at all. 16a/x

During actual winter,we can add some sand/gravel/grit ONLY IF NECESSARY. Some cities use "killer gravel", #tappajasepeli like in 📷 below. This material is ABSOLUTELY FORBIDDEN in #Oulu bike paths! The material must NOT cause any damage to vehicles,including bicycle tires. 16b/x

Let that sink in. No damage to bicycle tires is allowed. This kind of material is good, friendly for bike tires and also animal paws, and totally approved. Also, we do not use #overkill amounts of the material, and we use it only when it's needed. 17/x

All the friction materials must be approved by the client. However, very often a surface grippy enough can be achieved by just mechanically ploughing the surface with a densely toothed blade. 📷 shows different material combinations & amounts of material per area: 2-4 dl/m² 18/x

Just a regular snow-covered surface, properly ploughed with good blades and machinery, even without extra friction material can offer a perfectly good grip. Thus, often we do not need sand/gravel/grit on the surface at all and everyone is happy😊 19/x

An example of surface conditions that meet the quality requirements 👌 20/x

An important change to a contractor’s world is that they're now doing customer service. For the customers. Residents of the city.Not the city-client. Important part of this is active communication, which our contractor has done admirably, check them @ facebook.com/oulunkonetyo 21/x

In addition to the client, quality control is also done by voluntary winter maintenance “agents” who report the maintenance quality they experience on a weekly basis. Depending on the grades they give, the contractor may receive significant bonuses or sanctions. 22/x

The contractor must organize winter events at the bike paths three times per year. They’re giving out warm juice, snacks and collecting feedback directly from the users meeting them face to face. Great opportunity for reciprocal talks! Next event will happen now on Friday. 23/x

It’s important to pay attention to the plough blade. A straight blade is absolutely forbidden, as it won’t bite into snow and would produce too slippery surface. Instead we use carbide toothed blades where the distance between teeth must be under 20mm, such as in this photo: 24/x

Hope you enjoyed this thread. You can learn more at our e-Global Winter Cycling Congress, Feb 11-12 (just 20€ for 2 days!) I'm hosting a live video tour in #Oulu on Thu, & on Fri you can hear more about maintenance. Register at wintercycling.org! Thank you!🥰❄️🚲💨 25/25

If you want to learn more, check out our @CityMasterclass courses to reveal all the details at masterclass.city/services/oulu-…
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