Specifications include, but are not limited to: Clear Roads is an ongoing pooled fund research project aimed at rigorous testing of winter maintenance materials, equipment and methods for use by highway maintenance crews. Clear Roads will fund and oversee the contract for this project in coordination with MnDOT. For the last 15 years, agencies have reduced their winter operations budgets, requiring every new purchase to have a cost-benefit analysis to justify its dollar value. Managers needed a way to evaluate and justify the value of new and even standard products in order to take advantage of them. With this in mind, Clear Roads funded the research project Cost-Benefit Analysis Toolkit Phase I to create a tool for calculating the costs and benefits for specific new materials, equipment and methods used in winter maintenance activities. The toolkit turned out well and worked as anticipated, but Clear Roads would like to enhance the tool.
