Team effort restores the road and keeps traffic moving

8 years ago

Last week a large mobile crane caught fire at the end of an exit slip road on the M62 at Junction 28. If this wasn’t bad enough it happened in the evening rush hour!

 

Our M1-A1 BB-CSUK operations team assisted at the scene, setting traffic management to close the slip road for the emergency services and vehicle recovery to complete their works. With the fire was extinguished, the burnt out crane recovered, and initial clear up completed the rush-hour was now long over. The fire was extensive and damaged the road surface, making it unsafe to fully re-open the slip road to traffic. The traffic management was altered to allow traffic to pass the damaged surfacing and exit the motorway, minimising congestion until the road could be re-surfaced.

 

With the slip road being particularly busy during the morning and evening peak periods, and a full closure of the slip road required to create a safe working environment, it was decided to re-surface the damaged area during the ‘off-peak’ period – after the morning rush hour and re-open fully before the evening peak period . Quite a challenge given the resources, plant and materials to be mobilised at short notice.

 

The team set to work, working with Lafarge-Tarmac to replace the surfacing. However, the challenge was complicated with it also being the hottest day of the year to date. With surfacing comfortably completed in the off-peak period, re-opening was delayed until the surface had cooled sufficiently to not be damaged by trafficking and be safe to re-open. Temperature monitoring at 15 minutes intervals ensured the slip road re-opened as early as possible.

 

The efforts of the whole team meant that the slip road was open again ahead of the evening peak period.