Amey has developed a data-driven predictive winter service model potentially saving Kent County Council over £100,000 a year on its gritting operations.
The company, which is Kent’s highways maintenance provider, said that through analysis of the county’s geography and historical road surface temperature sensor data, its Amey Consulting arm developed AI models to better predict route icing conditions.
Road surface temperatures can now be predicted to within 1ºC, 24 hours in advance to 90% accuracy.
Amey said this created the opportunity to conduct a wholesale redesign of its gritting domains to maximise the consistency of route icing behaviour and improve the effectiveness of nightly gritting decisions.
The company said these improvements mean Kent can reduce ‘surplus gritting’ of roads that do not freeze and grit key routes more quickly and efficiently.
It is anticipated that the programme will improve gritting efficiency by 18%, equating to an annual cost saving for the council of £109k per year.
David Brazier, Kent’s cabinet member for highways and transport, said: ‘It is exciting to see the evolution of ground-breaking technology and the data we can use to make sure we are able to keep Kent moving in adverse weather.
‘We know winter is a critical time for our teams and with this additional information we will prioritise salting the right routes at the right times, putting KCC at the forefront of smart winter services.’
Nicola Blake, Amey account director for Kent, said: ‘Having worked with Kent County Council and our in-house consultancy team, Amey Consulting, we have new data that will help our teams to continue to effectively and efficiently deliver our gritting programme this year.'
Amey said it has also created a digital model of Kent’s gritting route network which has been used to simulate and optimise the locations and movements of its fleet.
This has been adapted so that the council’s winter services team is able to try alternative scenarios, for example, varying the salt spread rate, or excluding certain routes to suit different weather severities, automatically uploading the updated routes to the gritters’ navigation systems.
