TRB Webinar: Managing Gravel Road Maintenance

TRB conducted a webinar on April 10, 2012, that explored techniques for maintaining and managing granular surfaced roads. Participants must register in advance of the webinar, and there is a fee for non-TRB Sponsor employees. Contact Reggie Gillum at RGillum@nas.edu to request a recording of the webinar.

Webinar presenters will share techniques for maintaining and managing granular surfaced roads focusing on proper materials, blading techniques, and preserving the granular material placed on the road.  Discussion of base stabilization and dust palliative chemical use will also be included.

This webinar is designed to be beneficial for motorgrader operators, road supervisors, road managers, county and city engineers, and gravel producers and handlers.

Webinar overview:

Speaker 1:   Ken Skorseth, South Dakota Local Transportation Assistance Program
Title: Gravel Road Maintenance

Presentation Outline:

1. Roadway Shape and Drainage
   • Maintaining crown on traveled way
   • Avoiding the high shoulder critical role of motorgrader and operator.
2. Surface Gravel Selection
   • What is good surface aggregate?  
   • How it affects corrugation (washboarding), loose aggregate on road surface and high shoulders.
   • Detailed specification
3. Preservation
   • What can be done to conserve scarce aggregate resources?  
   • Cost/benefit analysis of stabilization treatments.

General Discussion

Speaker 2: George Huntington, University of Wyoming
Title: Gravel Roads Management: The State-of-the-Practice

Presentation Outline:

1. American County Survey Results
2. Gravel Roads Management Experts:  Cumulative Opinions
3. Assessing and Improving Gravel Road Management Practices
   • Inventory: Management sections
   • Data collection: Maintenance and cost tracking
   • Maintenance and Improvement scheduling
   • Maintenance policies and road standards
   • Cyclic maintenance
   • Triggered maintenance
   • Communicating with the Public and Elected Officials

Moderated by: Mark Nahra, Woodbury County Secondary Road Department


Webinar Learning  Objectives:

• Equipment operators will receive instruction on how to properly shape the road surface to maximize performance, improve ride quality, and reduce maintenance passes.
• Road managers, superintendents, and county engineers will receive instructions on how to properly manage their granular surfaced roads, how to select materials for road surfacing, how to train operators, and how to inform elected leaders and the public of the techniques for maintaining granular surfaced roads and the benefits of applying new maintenance methods.
• Material producers will receive information on what material gradations are most useful for quality granular surfaced roads.

Questions? Contact Reggie Gillum at RGillum@nas.edu.