The Ministry of Transport and Sustainable Mobility has activated the winter road campaign 2024-2025 in Aragon, which will have an endowment of 148 snow-blowers, 22,170 tons of fluxes stored in 30 warehouses and 78 silos, 40 brine tanks with capacity for 1,345,000 l. and a hundred weather stations to maintain the State Road Network in the best conditions of circulation and security in the face of snowfall. The government delegates in Aragon, Fernando Beltrán; Castilla-La Mancha, Milagros Tolón, and Castilla y León, Nicanor Sen, presented this campaign today in Zaragoza, which will remain active between November 2024 and April 2025.
The three delegates stressed the importance of collaborating between autonomous communities, especially between the borders, to maintain the roads of the state network in the conditions of functionality, road and safety optimal in extreme weather conditions, especially in the presence of ice and snow. Likewise, they have insisted that it is essential to prevent in order to be prepared.
In this line, Beltrán, Tolón and Sen have participated today in a winter road simulation on the A-2 motorway in which the Ministry of Transport and Sustainable Mobility, the Government Delegations of the three Communities, the competent administrations in traffic regulation (General Directorate of Traffic and Civil Traffic Guard), Civil Protection and the concessionary companies in charge of the conservation of the A-2.La test consisted in simulating an orange warning for snowfall in the Iberian System of Soria and Zaragoza, which affects these two provinces and also. Specifically, the performance was carried out in the stretch between the km 139,500 in Alcolea de Pinar (Guadalajara) and the 304,500 in Zaragoza. This section is one of the main axes of the State Road Network with an average daily traffic of 29,000 veh/day and a percentage of heavy vehicles of 30%.
Delegates have supervised the simulation from the Security Committee at the DGT Traffic Control Center in Zaragoza. This activity has begun after learning of a simulated warning from the AEMET due to snowfall forecasting and has continued with the deployment of means, widespread of founders, decision making on traffic restrictions, deployment of patrols and coordination between administrations, among others.
The government delegate in Aragon, Fernando Beltrán, explained that the preparation of this simulation began in February after a real episode of snowfall that affected the three autonomous communities. “Coordination between territories when an emergency occurs is crucial. So is the previous work. Exercises like today’s one help us to observe incidences and be even more prepared for this winter”:
The government delegate in Castilla-La Mancha, Milagros Tolón, recalled that “it is important to grease the machinery to be completely coordinated between territories”. “The Government Delegations are prepared with these winter road plans and, in addition, our Civil Protection technicians expose them to the population so that they know them,” said Tolón.
In the same vein, the Government delegate in Castilla y León, Nicanor Sen, has insisted that the Government of Spain, through the Government Delegations, is prepared to guarantee the security of citizens’ movements. “One of the main and fundamental components of any emergency and Civil Protection plan is prevention and it is important to make a detailed review of the protocols.”
The winter road campaign will last until April
The winter road operations that will be developed during this 2024-2025 campaign consist of preventive treatments in low temperature situations (mainly, prevention of the formation of ice plates on the roads) and in curatives in case of snowfall on the motorways, motorways and conventional roads affected (for example, snow removal).
Within this plan, users are advised to comply at all times with the recommendations made by the responsible bodies in case of adverse weather situations and to keep themselves informed about the state of the tracks.
The updated information can be consulted in the Winter Road Plan | Ministry of Transport and Sustainable Mobility, where every day the road works carried out on the last day will be published.
The available means that will be put into operation in the face of climatologically adverse situations are:
· 148 snow-removing machines: 70 in the province of Zaragoza, 39 in the province of Huesa and 39 in the province of Teruel.
· 30 flux stores with a total capacity of 22,170 tons: 9,000 Tn. in Zaragoza, 8,050 in Teruel and 5,120 in Huesca.
· 1,345,000 l. of brine: 572,000 in Zaragoza, 429,000 in Huesca and 344,000 in Teruel.