District 1 wins Wyoming Engineering Society Award

By Andrea Staley

District 1 Construction Engineer Ryan Shields, in conjunction with Surveyor Andrew Klingenberg, District Maintenance Engineer Tim Morton, and District Engineer Ralph Tarango, submitted their application for the Wyoming Engineering Society Presidential Award with “Utilizing Precision Survey and Machine Guidance to Open Mountain Pass Highways.” On Feb. 2, the WES announced that they had won. The awarded project highlighted a new and innovative way WYDOT has been able to use new technology to expedite opening our mountain passes.

The Snowy Range Scenic Byway (WYO 130) in southeastern Wyoming plays a vital role for Wyoming’s tourism economy and is a popular destination for snowmobilers, skiers, anglers, mountain bikers, hiking enthusiasts and those looking to camp in the mountains.

WYDOT is responsible for all maintenance on WYO 130, which peaks at 10,859 ft. and closes seasonally due to deep snow accumulations in the winter months. The effort to clear the 12-mile long mountain pass of snow can be very challenging and requires significant manpower and large, specialized equipment each spring. Crews often encounter snow depths of 10 ft. and drifts that can be as high as 20 ft. above the roadway surface.

“The snow depth obscures the underlying landscape making it difficult for equipment operators to know and follow the roadway alignment while clearing snow,” Morton said. “The process is time consuming and can often result in damage to the guardrail and other roadway features hidden beneath the snow, as well as damage to the equipment itself. Repairing this damage places an additional burden on WYDOT Maintenance and Equipment forces.”

The solution developed under this project allows a much more efficient operation. Snowcats with integrated GPS units are used, with the contractor Mountain States Snowcats, to cut in the exact roadway alignment, which is hidden beneath as much as 20 feet of snow, to the specified depth using precision survey data.

“WYDOT District Survey Support worked in conjunction with the snowcat operator to ensure that the data files provided were usable without further conversions or manipulations, and the data was aligning with the positions provided by the Global Navigation Satellite System receiver,” explains Andrew Klingenberg. “As additional data was prepared for other sections of road opening, it was straightforward to provide a data package to the snowcat operator that could be immediately loaded and used in the machine.”

To accomplish this, a detailed survey of this 12-mile stretch of WYO 130 was required. This data was collected using GPS survey equipment, which was adapted for mobile use with a UTV to efficiently and safely perform the survey. The survey collected exact locations of the roadway alignment and all the roadside features such as guardrail. WYDOT’s in-house survey experts processed all the survey data and partnered with the snowcat operators to ensure that the snowcat operator could immediately load and use the data with little to no field manipulation.

To the best of our knowledge, WYDOT is the first transportation agency to use precision mapping, machine guidance technologies, and real-time GNSS Precise Point Positioning, in conjunction with specialized snow removal machinery to re-open seasonally closed roads.

WYDOT snow blowers can then easily follow behind and clear the remaining snow down to the roadway surface without damaging the guardrail and other features. This has proven to be an innovative way to utilize survey technology and WYDOT’s in-house expertise to optimize maintenance operations. This is in line with WYDOT’s guiding principles: to continually improve operational effectiveness and efficiency and pass those savings and benefits along to the traveling public and highway users.

“To the best of our knowledge, WYDOT is the first transportation agency to utilize precision mapping, machine guidance technologies, and real-time GPS Precise Point Positioning in conjunction with specialized snow removal machinery to re-open seasonally closed roadways,” Shields said.

This is a unique operation that allows WYDOT to more efficiently open our seasonal mountain passes for all our visitors to enjoy and help support tourism, Wyoming’s second leading economic driver.

A WYDOT District 1 rotary plow clears part of WYO 130 through the Snowy Range, guided by contracted snowcats using GPS technology. The process helps the rotaries stay on the highway, minimizing damage to shoulders, guardrail and other assets. WYDOT’s collaboration with the snowcats recently won the Presidential Award from the Wyoming Engineering Society.