Episode 156: TRB WINTER MAINTENANCE - 2026 National Briefing

This National Briefing segment is presented by Anna Arvidsson Swedish National Road and Transport Research Institute and features the Transportation Research Board (TRB) Standing Technical Committee on Winter Maintenance and Response to Weather Events (AKJ17)  

If you want to submit your name to become a Friend of the Committee create your TRB account and follow the navigation to AKJ17 at https://www.mytrb.org/   

You can also reach out to Anna Arvidsson at anna.arvidsson@vti.se 

Watch the video and presentation along with all the other briefings on our YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/@Talkinwinterops or listen on the Talkin Winter Ops podcast at https://transportation.org/winter-weather-management/sicop-talks-winter-ops/ or wherever you get your podcast content.

Sign up for email notifications on future episodes and other communications associated with winter maintenance and winter weather management by clicking on subscribe on the Talkin' Winter Ops website at TalkinWinterOps.com

Thanks for listening in and stay safe out there!

Transcript

Rick 0:11

Welcome back to Talking Winter Ops. It's that time of year again when we sit down with other organizations working in winter maintenance to catch up on what they've been doing this past year. I'm Rick Nelson, and I'll be your host for the 2026 National Winter Maintenance and Road Weather Briefing Series. These briefings give us an opportunity to catch up with our partners in winter maintenance and road weather, learn about what they've been working on over the past year, and hear about their plans for the future. More importantly, they give you a chance to see how these ideas, tools, and initiatives might fit into your own operation. So grab your favorite beverage, settle in, and let's catch up with our partners across the country to hear about what's new and what's coming up next.

SPEAKER_01 1:00

Hi, I'm Jed Falgren, State Maintenance Engineer for the Minnesota Department of Transportation. And for the last 14 years, I've been actively involved in the snow and ice community at the state DOT. And over the years, I've seen no shortage of new technologies, products, and ideas come along. The challenge often isn't finding information, it's figuring out what really works and what makes sense for your organization. As someone who's been involved with the program for these many years, I've come to appreciate the role the Ashto Winter Weather Management Technical Service Program plays in helping agencies answer those questions. One of the things that I've always valued most is that this just isn't theory, it's practitioners helping practitioners. It's a chance to learn from the experience of others. Avoid reinventing the wheel, and tap into a network of people who understand the same challenges that we face every winter. I've seen firsthand how these ideas and relationships built through this program have helped agencies improve safety, efficiency, and service to our traveling public. And with a modest annual contribution, your agency can take advantage of the same resources, webinars, workshops, and peer networks that have made this program so valuable to me over the years. If you're not already involved, I really encourage you to take a look at the Ashto Winter Weather Management Technical Service Program. Visit transportation.org forward slash winter-weather-management. You may find the answers to a challenge you're dealing with today, or the next idea that really helps you move your winter operations forward.

Rick 2:54

This segment focuses on the Transportation Research Board Committee AKJ17, the Standing Technical Committee on Winter Maintenance and Response to Weather Events, which you might have known as winter maintenance in past years. Committee Chair Anna Arbison joins us on this segment to share the work of the committee. Hi Anna.

SPEAKER_00 3:15

Hi, Rick. I'll just go ahead and do the presentation about AKG 17. Okay. From the beginning, the Technical Activity Division do a lot of things. It's about 100 standing technical committees in the TRB at the moment, and we are over 2,000 committee members. And the TAD creates a framework and develops activities that enable experts to come together to identify critical and emerging transportation issues and recommends ways to find solutions. All the committees have a balanced membership of academia, the public and the private sectors. All committees was reconstructed in 2025, and AKG 17 became the Committee of Winter Maintenance and Response to Weather Events. The committee scope is concerned with research and innovation related to winter maintenance activities of transportation agencies and their response to weather events, such as hurricanes, tornadoes, and floods. We are at the moment 20 members and 196 friends to the committee. There are a few more members coming in in the coming months, I hope. We have nomineed a few people and hope to get them elected as well. The organization in charge of TRB at the moment is the Transportation Infrastructure Group, and under that is the section for management system of construction and maintenance. And under there is six committees and which if the wind maintenance and response to weather events is one of them. So we try to work quite quite a lot together, all those six committees. We started one in September with only the members. We had one in December to prepare for an annual meeting in January, and all members and friends was invited to those. And so that was meeting two and three. And we have uh meeting four is up uh July 1st, and it's open for both members and friends, and it's gonna be online. So up to today we had three meetings. We had an annual meeting uh was which was well attended in person in January. Uh for this uh we had 21 papers sent in to the committee, and out of them we got two lecture sessions with 11 presentations to in total, and we also had nine posters. We also held a workshop in January for defining winter road service expectations during severe weather, and it was a really high discussion on that one. So I think we got a lot of information spread to all the member to all the people that attended. Uh we also this spring started three working groups, and they are uh working group one that's concentrated on forecasting extreme weather and providing decision support for responders. Uh we have the working group two, winter maintenance technology. It's more about uh chemicals. And we have working group three that is called resources for responding to weather events. All working groups has held uh two two of the uh groups has held the first meeting and I think the third is uh planning to have it soon. And those two groups that already started had also started to doing quite big plans for what to do in within the group. Uh so the working groups has a few different activities that they can work on as a result of the work. Uh they can write research needs statements, uh, they can uh arrange a webinar, they can have workshops at the annual meeting. They can also have sessions at the annual meeting, like a Legend session or a poster session. They can arrange a conference and I actually think a few of them will be part of an upcoming conference in 2027, I think. And it's also possible to write a circular that's to document the critical currently existing knowledge that's not easy accessible for others to read. Uh coming up in within the committee, we have the next meeting, July first. It's open for both members and friends. Uh we're starting the work for the next annual meeting in January 27 with Call of Papers that starts July first and ends August first. We have paper reviews after that, and that's quite a big uh post of what we actually do within the committee. Uh we'll members and friends help out to review the papers and then plan for uh lecture sessions or posters at the annual meeting in 27. Uh the big event is the meeting and that's taking place 10th to 14th of January. And also there's gonna be a lot of activities in the working groups during the fall. And if you want to know more, it's always welcome to become a friend of the committee. And it's easy if you haven't already an account at mytab.org. You can sign up or just log in and become a friend of one or more committees. You can also use the QR code here to get directly to it. And friends get committee correspondence and invitations to meetings, and friends are more than welcome to contribute with the committee activities. And if you don't have the time to uh contribute, you can just follow what we're doing and we're sending out information now and then within the committee during the year. And I think that was everything I had about uh the winter maintenance and response to weather events.

Rick 11:50

Sounds like you've got yourself reorganized rather quickly after the big convulsion that took place in at TRB last year where they reformulated all the committees. I'm glad to see that winter maintenance still has a a place there.

SPEAKER_00 12:05

Yeah, we have, and we are quite active. We have a lot of uh really good members in committee at the moment, so and they are uh gladly helping me to not do all ev everything myself as well.

Rick 12:22

Yeah, it and it looks like your scope maybe expanded a little bit. You know, before the focus really was on winter maintenance, and as you mentioned, now there's uh hurricanes and floods and all kinds of severe weather events uh have been rolled in.

SPEAKER_00 12:39

Yeah, yeah. We try to broaden our views and have other things related to weather. So everything that can actually land on the road is a part of uh what we are looking at at the moment.

Rick 12:58

Yeah, and and you know, I think that's a good thing because uh the TRB in the past had several different committees that dealt with weather-related events, and things fall through the cracks when that happens because you know one committee thinks the other one's working on it and and back and forth, and to to have a central point to deal with these weather events, I think, is is a is a good thing. And Anna, we're we're glad that you're the chair of the committee and providing some continuity for for us on the winter weather side.

SPEAKER_00 13:29

Yeah. Yeah, it's hopefully easier to find if you want to send in an abstract for a paper for the annual meeting. It's probably easier to say I have something weather related and easier to find which committee to send it to. So I think that's on the positive side.

Rick 13:51

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Anna, we'll look forward to seeing you at the uh annual meeting this coming up this next January, and uh we'll look forward to hearing about the work from the committee. Thank you. Thanks for listening in on this year's national briefing. You can catch them all and other talk in winter ops episodes on our website, talkin'winterops.com, at the Ashto Winter Weather Management website at transportation.org forward slash winter-weather-management, or wherever you get your podcast content. Video versions of this briefing are available on our Talk and Winterops YouTube channel. Now, if something in this briefing sparked your interest, you can email me or our guests to keep the conversation going. Until next time, thanks for tuning in and stay safe out there.