Research enables UK roads safely to cut down on salt

Keeping England's trunk roads open during the last two severe winters was especially challenging, putting salt stocks under significant pressure. This paper explains how the UK Highways Agency has improved its winter service without compromising safety with a new fleet of pre-wet spreaders and much lower salt spread rates, arrived at through robust international research. The savings of around 30% mean there is now sufficient salt to treat roads in the most severe weather, thereby minimising congestion due to ice and snow. Further development of the initial research has been carried out to bring similar benefits to local highway authorities.