The Clear Roads Research Program

brings together transportation professionals and researchers from around the country to drive innovation in the field of winter maintenance. By evaluating materials, equipment and methods in real-world conditions, the program identifies the most effective techniques and technologies to improve safety, increase efficiency and save agencies money.

News & Events

New Clear Roads Research: Leveraging the Deicing Benefits of Solar Radiation

To help winter maintenance managers understand how sunlight affects melt rates, prioritize vegetation management, and communicate the benefits of roadside vegetation management to the public, this Clear Roads project produced a vegetation management guide.

Winter Maintenance News Roundup

Check out the recent news on winter maintenance from around the country.

Winter Maintenance at the 2026 TRB Meeting

Clear Roads has prepared a listing of technical sessions and posters related to winter maintenance that were presented at the 2026 Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting. The list includes links to more than two dozen papers and posters on a wide range of winter maintenance topics, including materials, equipment, technology, and performance management.

Budgets and Timelines Added to Clear Roads RFPs

Estimated budgets and timelines for the seven new Clear Roads research projects have just been published.

Recent Research Results

New Clear Roads Research: Leveraging the Deicing Benefits of Solar Radiation

To help winter maintenance managers understand how sunlight affects melt rates, prioritize vegetation management, and communicate the benefits of roadside vegetation management to the public, this Clear Roads project produced a vegetation management guide.

New Clear Roads Research: Incorporating Pavement Friction Data into Operational Decisions

Real-time information about a pavement’s surface can help transportation agencies ensure roads have adequate traction and salt is applied only where it’s needed. This Clear Roads project evaluated roadway grip data as a viable source for informing winter maintenance operations, and developed models that use the data to identify the need for salt applications.

Clear Roads Research is Now a Provisional Test Method

The Mechanical Rocker Test method, originally developed by Nebraska DOT more than a decade ago, was validated through Clear Roads research project 18-06 as a low-cost and repeatable method for determining the efficacy of liquid deicers. As a result of this work, all transportation agencies can objectively compare deicers on the market.

New Resources

New Clear Roads Research: Leveraging the Deicing Benefits of Solar Radiation

To help winter maintenance managers understand how sunlight affects melt rates, prioritize vegetation management, and communicate the benefits of roadside vegetation management to the public, this Clear Roads project produced a vegetation management guide.

Winter Maintenance at the 2026 TRB Meeting

Clear Roads has prepared a listing of technical sessions and posters related to winter maintenance that were presented at the 2026 Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting. The list includes links to more than two dozen papers and posters on a wide range of winter maintenance topics, including materials, equipment, technology, and performance management.

New Clear Roads Research: Quantifying the Value of Winter Operations

This Clear Roads project developed a tool that states can use to quantify the economic value of their snow-and-ice programs.