Operation & Maintenance

On May 1st 2012, Via Gateway Thüringen began the 20-year operating phase for the A9 highway between the Lederhose junction and the Thuringia/Bavaria state border. The operational service and its staff are responsible for ongoing operations on the contract section of the A9 highway. The services to be provided by the operational services department include immediate maintenance work on the road as well as regular route inspections.

We operate two depots: the depot in Blintendorf with the administration building, vehicle and equipment halls, salt hall and brine facility, and a depot in Dittersdorf, which includes another salt hall with brine facility.

The Via Gateway Thüringen operations team fulfils a wide range of tasks and ensures road safety:

• immediate work on the road
• cleaning
• green maintenance
• winter road maintenance
• cooperation with emergency services

The technical equipment includes six trucks, two Unimog and eight transporters, wheel loaders and modern advance warning equipment, such as mobile LED traffic information boards and several mobile advance warning signs and barrier boards.

On behalf of Via Gateway Thüringen, subcontractors also carry out further work, such as

• Oil spill and hazard removal
• Maintenance of passive safety barriers
• Winter service ( support during peak hours)

Due to the high altitude of the approximately 46 km long A9 highway section between the Lederhose junction and the Bavarian border, winter road maintenance is of exceptional importance.

Via Gateway Thüringen therefore has a qualified team of operations supervisors and trained road maintenance workers to ensure safety - around the clock if necessary. The eight fully equipped winter service vehicles are state-of-the-art and support the experienced team in their work.

Thanks to innovative technologies, the Via Gateway Thüringen road maintenance team is always up to date on the weather situation: A weather information system provides precise short and long-term forecasts on the type and amount of frost and snowfall. In addition, local weather stations along the route transmit the exact data on site.

The operational staff and operational supervisors are in constant contact with each other thanks to an intelligent cart tracking system. Using GPS, it tracks the vehicles and helps to optimise the coordination of operations.

The most important goal is to maintain and maximise the traffic safety and performance of the contract route at all times. Within the project, Via Gateway will have a management team consisting of 8 employees. Within the project, Via Gateway will have a management team consisting of 8 employees. In addition, Via Gateway employs 1 highway supervisor with 1 deputy, 19 road maintenance workers, team leaders and vehicle mechanics as well as 1 operational engineer. An additional 6 road maintenance workers are assigned to winter road maintenance.

Like the operating service, the maintenance of structures is one of Via Gateway's contractually defined services with the federal government. But what does this mean in concrete terms?

For road users, maintenance work is carried out on the parking and public restroom facilities, for example, to ensure that they are always in an orderly and clean condition. But maintenance means much more than that.

A sustainable maintenance programme has been developed to ensure the best possible condition and availability of the track in the long term. For this purpose, the condition of the project track is regularly checked by independent experts and our measures are successively developed based on new information from research and practice. To minimise the impact on traffic flow, works that can be planned are carried out at night or during off-peak hours wherever possible.

As part of our maintenance services, we take care of:

• the superstructure (carriageway, parking and toilet facilities)
• the engineering structures (bridges, noise protection walls and facilities)
• Earthworks (embankments, dams and verges)
• drainage (pipelines, rainwater retention basins)
• equipment (signage, markings and safety barriers)

Via Gateway Thüringen organises the operational service of the A9 autobahn with the support of an innovative electronic monitoring system. All services and defects are documented in the system. The processed data enables rapid and targeted deployment planning. This enables us to optimise the operational service processes. As a result, we do not miss a single detail in the complex task of keeping the route available and safe.

By the colour of the trucks. Because our fleet are coloured sulphur yellow.