Minimising Customer Disruption Through Pavement Design

We recently had to undertake overnight resurfacing work on the westbound slip roads of the A64 trunk road and the A1237 York outer ring road. This key junction has a heavy commuter and leisure traffic flow, so works had to be planned overnight under full slip road closures to minimise disruption. The overnight traffic management included diversions for the road users using this key junction, increasing journey time and cost.

To minimise both the duration of the works and the need for repeat visits in future years, we identified a new material known as Ultigrip. This material uses a bauxite aggregate to achieve the high friction properties required on the surface which would usually be achieved through the secondary application of high friction surfacing. So the Ultigrip can be laid in one single pass of the paving machine instead of the conventional surfacing in one pass followed by high friction surfacing applied afterwards.

This minimised the duration of the scheme, the number of different activities requiring to be carried out in a small site  and reduced the material and operations required on site.

In addition, the Ultigrip is expected to last 10-12 years avoiding the need for repeat application of high friction surfacing material every 3-4 years.