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Battleford road report moving forward after data collection finished

Sep 6, 2016 | 11:35 AM

A vehicle collecting data on Battleford’s roads made the rounds this weekend and an analysis of road conditions will soon be following.

Michael Treffry, field operations supervisor for Fugro Roadware, said the vehicle collected data on 71 km of road in Battleford on Saturday, Sept. 3 in roughly 6 hours. He said the vehicle profiles each road and determines measures like thickness, rutting, distress and roughness.

“The biggest advantage of having the road analyzer is we can do it at a high speed,” he said. “We can go through an entire province in a month or two, then process the data and get it back to the ministries quickly and they can then understand their pavement systems and make decisions.”

Once the data is analyzed, it will be sent to Catterall & Wright Consulting in Saskatoon, where a team including Carolyn Mathison will prepare a report for the town.

“It’ll help identify different maintenance strategies based on the existing conditions of the roads as well as prioritization,” she said.

She said often roads are fixed on a “worst first” basis, but that’s not always the best method. In the long term, she said it’s best to rehabilitate roads earlier in the pavement’s life, when the pavement is in better condition.

There are several factors contributing to the data analysis and road report, so there isn’t an exact timeline yet for the when the road report will be delivered to the town.

 

Sarah Rae is battlefordsNOW’s court and crime reporter. She can be reached at Sarah.Rae@jpbg.ca or tweet her @sarahjeanrae.