KEYNOTE SPEAKERS

Thursday 11 August

Steve Bloser – USA

Director; Center for Dirt and Gravel Road Studies Larson Transportation Institute, Penn State University

Better Roads, Cleaner Streams: Lessons from Pennsylvania

In 1997, Pennsylvania (USA) created the “Dirt, Gravel, and Low Volume Road Maintenance Program” in response to grassroots pressure to address runoff and stream pollution issues from its network of 33,000+
KM of unpaved public roads.

The program provides grant funding, which is supplementary to traditional road maintenance funding, to fund specific road improvement projects that focus on the environmental benefit to local waterways.

The Program has evolved over the last two decades, increasing in annual funding from $5M (US) to $35M (US), and expanding in scope to addressed paved/sealed roads with less than 500 vehicles per day. Throughout this time, the core focus of the Program has remained the same: focus on a project that improves the environment and the road, put decision making at the local level, and provide education to local road owning entities in the hopes they will implement similar practices with their own funds.

Since 1997, the Program has completed 5,000 projects totalling over $250M (US). This presentation will be in two parts: introduction and overview of the
PA Program; and examples of practices and projects implemented

Friday 12 August

Steve Bloser – USA 

Driving Surface Aggregate: Lessons in surfacing for unbound roads from Pennsylvania

For unbound (unpaved) roads, aggregate is often the most visible and expensive part of overall road
maintenance. Yet in many locations around the world, little thought or effort is given to the
properties of the aggregate used beyond “what is closest and cheapest?”.

When the Dirt, Gravel, and Low Volume Road Maintenance Program started in Pennsylvania in 1997, most local roads were being surfaced with a product that was designed as an underlayment for asphalt. This material was “open graded”, meaning it was designed for drainage instead of compaction, and would quickly come apart under traffic stress.

Driving Surface Aggregate (DSA) is a specification of aggregate the PA Program developed specifically as a wearing course for unbound roads. The gradation is designed to achieve maximum density, and other properties such as abrasion resistance and soundness ensure the longest possible life cycle for unpaved roads.

In Pennsylvania, we have learned that while a quality aggregate may be more expensive up front, it will save millions of dollars and thousands of tons of sediment runoff over the life of the road.

This presentation will provide an overview of DSA and discuss aggregate properties to look for when surfacing unbound roads.

Matt Claridge

Executive Director Te Araroa | Tumu Whakahaere - Te Araroa

Presentation from the trust linking with the impacts of tourism on local road networks.  The Te Araroa Trail is increasing in popularity as it is marketed as the ultimate Kiwi experience - a 3000km continuous walking track from Cape Reinga to Bluff.  There are many interactions with local roading networks and local authorities throughout the full length and Matt will provide a very interesting presentation about the trail.

Shane Taylor, Fonterra

Regional Fleet Service Manager South & Lower North Island

This presentation will focus around reliability/resilience (tanker pick ups) than Roading levels of service like one might expect. Vehicle maintenance costs – SH v Local roads.
Shane has been with Fonterra for 25 years, starting out as a Tanker Operator at Clandeboye Site in South Canterbury with Alpine Dairy Products.
During this time he has progressed through many roles in Transport, which include Driver Training, Scheduling/Dispatch and Team Manager roles. For the past 11 years, I’ve been Canterbury and Upper South Depot Manager based at the Darfield site in Central Canterbury.
During his time at the Darfield site he was involved with the site construction project to its opening in 2012 and spent 18 months as acting site manager during the time the Cream Cheese plant was built and commissioned along with the Reverse Osmosis cow water plant.
Over the last 3 years he has also had responsibility for the management of both Culverden and Tuamarina sites.
He has recently commenced his current role as Regional Fleet Services manager for South and Lower North Islands which has responsibilities for servicing and maintenance on 280 tankers along with a team of 75 staff. 

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