New road surfacing technology comes to Buckinghamshire

The Etnyre Chipper Spreader in action.

A new innovative piece of road surfacing technology is to be used as part of the Transport for Buckinghamshire 2019 road surfacing programme.

The Etnyre Chipper Spreader, a new innovative piece of road surfacing technology, is to be used as part of the Transport for Buckinghamshire 2019 road surfacing programme.

The machine has the capability to spread the treatment across a carriageway width of up to 6.1m, this being a 30% increase on the maximum width previously possible.

An advanced computer on board the Etnyre Chipper Spreader manages the rate of spread of the chippings so that material usage can be improved. The speed of the surface dressing process can also be varied, improving efficiency on roads where the machine can be fully extended.

In Buckinghamshire this means that some of the more minor roads can be treated in one pass, minimising or even eliminating joints. This will reduce road closure time and improves the effectiveness of treatment.

Eurovia Specialist Treatments (EST), the contractor responsible for the surface dressing programme, has just two crews in the country that use these machines and Transport for Buckinghamshire is delighted to be using this innovative technique on all 27 of its surface dressing sites.

Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Transportation, Mark Shaw said: ‘This exciting technology is great news for us. Putting surface dressing down in one clean sweep will reduce the time on site – but more importantly, no joints means a more robust finish, which is less prone to failure, so improving value for money for us. I am really pleased this is something we have secured for use in Buckinghamshire this year.‘