NTTA prepares for winter with addition of snowplows

PLANO -- Super Bowl XLV was memorable for many reasons, but the lasting memory a lot of North Texans have is the undrivable roads and bitter cold that enveloped the area during the days leading up to the game.

While the North Texas Tollway Authority can't control the weather, the agency thinks it will be better prepared for future events thanks to the addition of nine new snowplows. In the past, the NTTA was forced to use makeshift plows to keeps its roadways clear.

"We actually used road graders to clear our roads last year," said Eric Hemphill, director of maintenance for the NTTA, noting that the graters were less than ideal but better than nothing. "We have had a need for the plows and could have used them every year. The Super Bowl incident just highlighted their effectiveness because it was such a prolonged incident. Usually when we have an incident, it is only a few days. That one was 11 days."

The plows will be mounted to the front of the agency's sand trucks. Hemphill said this gives the trucks the ability to plow lanes, and then throw either sand, magnesium chloride or both on the newly plowed road. He said the sand improves traction on the road, while the salt mixture decreases the freezing point of water, helping keep the roads ice free.

A total of 20 drivers will be trained on the plows and will work 12 hour shifts when needed, allowing the plows to operate 24 hours a day. The training has already begun, with the aid of a high-tech simulator designed by L-3 Communications. The four-hour course will teach drivers how to drive the plows, as well as how to deal with situations that may arise while out on the roads.

"This is extremely realistic," said Richard Griffin, a senior trainer with L-3. "This is about decision-based driving and how we make decisions when we are driving down the road. The simulation is based on real-time actions and their speed and reaction time. The reactions in here are as realistic as they are out there. "

In addition to eight or nine runs through the simulator, the drivers also spend time in the classroom learning more about the machines and road conditions. Griffin said the training ensures the drivers are ready and able to deal with the icy roads that are used by hundreds of thousands of people in the Dallas area.

"Their responsibilities are tremendous," Griffin said. "They have a love-hate relationship with the public. People love them when they see them on the news but hate them when they are stuck behind them trying to get to work. Their job is to make the roads safe for the general public. In the simulator they can make the mistakes that they can't make out on the road, and then learn from those mistakes."

One of the 20 drivers in the training program is Derek McCollum, who has been with the NTTA for a little over a year. Unlike some of his colleagues, McCollum has experience driving snowplows, which he gained while serving as a U.S. Army light-wheel vehicle mechanic in Germany. McCollum said he had only completed two runs on the simulator, but what he had experienced was helpful so far.

"I think this is giving us some awareness of some of the things that we will have to react to once we are on the roadway such as pedestrians and cars trying to pass us on the left and right," McCollum said. "They already do that when we are in the sand trucks, but it could be worse in the snowplows since we have to drive even slower. We know our posted signs say 70 mph, but some of our customers want to run that regardless of what the weather is like."

Even though the plows will be mounted on trucks McCollum and his fellow NTTA employees are familiar with, he said there are some new things the drivers have to be aware of. He said drivers must be even more focused than they usually would be in order to ensure the "rooster tail" of plowed snow is being thrown away from traffic, and not into the path of vehicles. Other things the drivers must remember is to raise the plow before they get to expansion joints on the bridges and to drop the mixture of sand and salt in intersections and on bridges when needed.

The agency currently owns three plows, with the remaining six set to be delivered by January.

Current Rating: 0 of 0 votes!

Rate File: Select Rating: * ** *** ****

 Plano Apartments
 Plano Attorneys
 Plano Auto Dealers
 Plano Auto Parts
 Plano Auto Repair
 Plano Beauty Salons
 Plano Car Rental
 Plano Dentists
 Plano Doctors
 Plano Flowers
 Plano Hotels
 Plano Insurance
 Plano Loans
 Plano Mortgages
 Plano Movers
 Plano Pizza
 Plano Realtors
 Plano Restaurants
 Plano Storage
 Plano Tax Preparation
 Plano Travel
 Featured
 More...