At Volker Stevin Highways, we strive to build, and maintain long-term relationships with our clients based on safety, quality, value, trust, and timely service. We maintain the highest levels of professionalism, integrity, honesty, and fairness in our relationships with our clients, professional associates, subcontractors, and suppliers. Our culture of building and maintaining successful partnerships instills confidence in achieving both employee, and client goals.
Serving Alberta’s travelling public by maintaining safe, and clear highways.
Services
Highway Maintenance
Keeping Alberta Roads Safe Year-round
We maintain close to 30% of the provincial highway network in Alberta.
We deploy over 200 snow plows as winter road conditions require.
With a team of close to 350 dedicated employees, Volker Stevin Highways maintains close to 30% of the provincial highway network in Alberta from the Saskatchewan border, south to the Montana border, and west to the BC border. Our crews also reach North of Olds, West of Nordegg, and maintain the NE section of the Anthony Henday Drive in Edmonton.
Our team works daily to keep roads safe year-round for Alberta’s travelling public. In the winter, we deploy over 200 snow plows whenever winter road conditions warrant. Have you seen our blue, and orange trucks around? That’s our family working hard to ensure that your family is safe. And we do it with pride, every day, knowing that we are making a difference in the lives of Albertans and their families.
What we do in Highway maintenance
Snow & Ice Control
Volker Stevin Highways provides winter maintenance services on approximately 30% of the provincial highway network in the province of Alberta. That’s about 18,500 lane kilometers! In order to meet the harsh demands of Alberta winters, Volker Stevin utilizes a large variety of equipment including plow trucks equipped with two-way front mount plows, left and right-hand wings, pre-wetting systems, anti-icing systems, Automated Vehicle Location Systems (AVLS), and some of the most advanced spreader control systems available in the industry today. Employing a fully trained, and experienced staff operating out of 38 maintenance yards in Alberta, Volker Stevin Highways is able to ensure that provincial service level requirements are not only achieved, but exceeded.
Plowing & Stacking
Volker Stevin Highways has 38 maintenance shed locations across our Contract Maintenance Areas (CMA’s), and the North East portion of the Anthony Henday Drive which surrounds Edmonton. There are two main repair facilities supported by several mobile equipment technicians strategically placed at some of the larger maintenance yards.
Over 200 VSH plow trucks will see 60,000 hours of plowing, and sanding time annually. This does not include the efforts of graders, snow blowers, dozers, and hi-hoes that are also required at times to combat the winter storms. Some of these services are sub-contracted by VSH to local businesses in their respective communities.
Road Inspections
Following established road patrol schedules based on traffic volumes, Volker Stevin Highways performs road patrols on all of the 18,500 lane km’s of road it is responsible for. During these road patrols, Volker Stevin Highways maintenance operators are not only checking, and observing the road surface for any hazards or repairs required, they are also checking all of the appurtenances within the provincial right-of-way. All of these observations are documented allowing for proper management, and scheduling of work to take place. This process of follow-up maintenance repair activities ensures repairs are conducted in a timely, and cost-effective manner. Our maintenance program also results in extending the life, and investment of public infrastructure, and while enhancing safety by completing repairs before they become a hazard to the public.
As part of our work on the provincial highways VSH crews will inspect the roads, and update road conditions on 511 Alberta. Annually our patrol vehicles drive more than 5 million KM’s to monitor the roads, update road conditions and report and fix road defects (such as potholes).
Surface & Right-of-Way Maintenance
During the spring, summer, and fall months, Volker Stevin Highways provides maintenance, and repairs to the surface of highways, parks, and canals on both paved, and gravel roadways. This work includes major activities as listed.
Other activities also include culvert and drainage repairs, sign and guardrail maintenance, debris removal, graffiti removal, and rest room maintenance. VSH performs close to 300 different work activities to maintain, and keep Alberta’s transportation infrastructure safe for the traveling public.
- Paving
- Crack-sealing
- Spray Patching
- Pothole Patching
- Line & Message Painting
- Roadway Blading & Gravelling
- Road Way & Median Sweeping
- Bridge Washing
- Overhead Lighting Maintenance
Paving
With in-house paving crews, and direct access to two Asphalt plants, VSH is able to provide a turn-key paving operation addressing any paver patching requirements, to repair failing asphalt conditions.
Line Painting
VSH’s state-of-the-art line painting truck complemented by a few subcontractors allows Volker Stevin Highways to apply roughly 700,000 litres of paint, and over 400,000 kilograms of glass bead annually to the highways we maintain.
Roadway Sign Installation & Maintenance
Volker Stevin Highways is responsible for the repair, replacement, and maintenance of all road signs and their support structures within the provincial highway right-of-way, canals, and provincial parks in Southern Alberta. During scheduled road patrols any signs, and their support structures requiring repairs or adjustment are documented with scheduled work orders. Each of the 38 maintenance facilities stock an inventory of commonly used signs, and support structures allowing quick reaction time for most repairs when required. Throughout the winter months between winter storm events, our crews also wash the signs to increase visibility, and safety for travellers.
Avalanche Sign Project HWY 93 in Banff and Jasper National Park
During the fall of 2020 and 2021, in order to warn the public of Avalanches on Hwy 93 in both Banff, and Jasper National Parks, 173 Avalanche, and other public warning signs were installed. Working in the National parks allowed us to experience the beauty mother nature has to offer. With this beauty also came challenges that had to be overcome such as narrow/tight roadways, very strict environmental regulations, working in remote locations, and being able to mobilize, and use heavier equipment in certain locations. Managing these challenges, and implementing control measures where required resulted in a successful project.
Vegetation Control
In order to manage and control the vegetation in the right-of-way alongside provincial highways, canals, and inside Alberta’s provincial parks, Volker Stevin Highways performs mowing and trimming, weed spraying (where appropriate), and brush control as required. These vegetation control measures are completed to help manage weed growth, and to ensure that the safety of the public is not compromised by visibility restrictions.
Mowing
Annually, Volker Stevin Highways will mow the equivalent of 38,376 football fields all resulting in positive benefits for our communities. This keeps the vegetation height down to improve sight lines, reduces the amount of drifting problems in the winter months, and eliminates the transfer of weed seeds to other areas. Through the administration of Hay Permits, local residents can mow their ditches to get feed for their livestock.
Traffic Accommodation Services
Hundreds of thousands of people expect to travel safely every day on the highways VSH maintains. When there are disruptions to the normal flow of traffic, it is imperative that proper Traffic Accommodation Strategies (TAS) are developed, and implemented to keep the travelling public safe. Having in-house expertise, and pre-approved TAS, we are able to respond efficiently, and safely to the wide variety of situations that may present hazards to the travelling public (ex. work zones, accidents, floods, fires etc.).
Our work also includes TAS for movie sets.
Due to the vast scope of terrain, and beautiful landscape in southern Alberta, many movies, and commercials have been filmed here over the past two decades. With many of these movies filmed in areas with large traffic volumes, Volker Stevin Highways has been instrumental in keeping movie crews safe while filming is taking place. With in-house design, and experience Volker Stevin Highways is able to design and implement proven Traffic Accommodation Strategies, and detours in order to keep commuter traffic moving safely.
Some of the movies and commercials our Traffic Accommodation team has supported include;
Movies:
The Edge, Ghost Busters, Fargo, Snow dogs, Cold Pursuit, The Revenant, War for the Planet of the Apes, Interstellar, Heartland, The Last of Us, Broke Back Mountain, Last of the Dogmen.
Commercials:
Mercedes, Ford, Mazda, Coors Beer.
Emergency Services
Volker Stevin Highways provides 24/7 emergency response to all traffic control requests, and incidents on provincial highways for both public, and private customers. Our highway maintenance teams have fully trained, and certified flag people on hand at all times. Ready with portable, programmable message boards, arrow boards, traffic lights, and emergency sign packages, Volker Stevin Highways is able to respond to all types of road complications including accident scenes, spill responses, and lane closures, etc.
Kenow Fire CNP
In September 2017, the Kenow fire raged through Waterton Park, and parts of Southern Alberta. With extremely poor visibility from the smoke, and the chance for the fire to jump the highway, or move in different directions due to wind conditions, Volker Stevin had the important task of keeping the travelling public safe. Road closures, message boards, and site-specific traffic control measures had to be organized, and implemented at many different locations within a very short timeframe. Many of these locations had people manning them day, and night.
2013 Flood
In June of 2013, 350mm of rain fell in less than 48 hours near Canmore, Alberta melting the snow pack in the Rockies. As this melt coursed down the mountainsides huge boulders, and whole trees left a trail of destruction, and debris in its wake. One of the major casualties was the Trans Canada Highway at Canmore where the normally trickling Cougar Creek became a raging river of debris-laden, destructive water. Within a matter of several days expending 13,000 man hours, 5,500 equipment hours, 17,500 cubic metres of rock, 850 cubic metres of boulders, 135 cubic metres of concrete, Highway 1 was rebuilt, repaved, and opened to traffic.
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