On Wednesday, the 16th of October, winter maintenance season commenced on the network of state roads in Latvia. This season will continue until the 15th of April 2025, as reported by Latvian State Roads (LVC).
During the winter maintenance season, roads have to be maintained in accordance with the requirements laid down in the Cabinet of Ministers regulations regarding for the daily maintenance of state and municipal motor roads and monitor compliance with relevant road maintenance regulations.
LVC notes roads in Latvia are divided into five maintenance categories – A, B, C, D, and E. The main criterion is the intensity of road traffic – the higher the intensity, the higher the maintenance category.
All major state highways will be provided with A or the highest maintenance class. At the same time, for example, local motorways in Pierīga have a higher traffic volume than regional State motorways in the border area, therefore a higher maintenance class has been determined for these local roads than for a regional road with a low traffic volume.
Maintenance work is carried out in order of priority according to the maintenance classes – first cleaning the busiest roads and performing other maintenance work on them.
It costs almost EUR 100 000 to clear all class A and B state highways from snow once, while it costs EUR 132 000 to clear these roads once, reducing slippage. So, in order to clean and sprinkle all class A and B roads once a day, EUR 232 000 are needed, in changing weather conditions, when snowfall occurs several times a day, it may be necessary to carry out such work repeatedly, so the cost of maintenance work may increase to 50, LVC explains.
To improve driving conditions on state highways in the winter period, wet salt is used as a slippage reduction material. The composition of the technical salt contains at least 90% sodium chloride, which ensures the melting of ice and snow.