PRIVATE-PUBLIC PARTNERSHIP IN THE SLOVENIA WINTER ROAD MAINTENANCE

This paper describes how winter maintenance (WM) is a complex and expensive service, which represents a large amount of road maintenance costs for countries having severe winters. In Slovenia, current estimates show that about 65% of maintenance costs are because of the winter. The central question is therefore: How to make the winter maintenance service more cost effective? There are two important basic issues that need to be considered, the organizational scheme of winter maintenance and the actual winter (climatic) conditions of the entire country. Both issues are presented in the paper. Important weather (climactic) variables are briefly described, and a possible consideration of risk estimation for seasonal snowfalls is also presented.