MTO fines contractors for substandard highway maintenance

Email to CBC NewsfromOntario Ministry of Transportation, Northwestern Region:

The safety of the people travelling onOntariohighways is a responsibility that the ministry takes very seriously. Our winter maintenance standards have been developed based on extensive experience and are consistent with the best practices of highway authorities inNorth America.

While our contract requirements and models have changed over the years, our standards have not. The ministry monitors the contractor's operations to ensure they are meeting the requirements of their contract and our high standards for winter maintenance. Through the use of automated vehicle locaters (GPS), ministry staff routinely monitor equipment response times and equipment route times. Snow accumulation, time to achieve bare pavement conditions, radio logs, and police call reports are also monitored to ensure maintenance standards are met.

If we find that an operational requirement is not met, we impose financial consequences and compel the contractor to review and modify their operations to ensure that requirements are met in the future.

The majority of reviews are conducted on a random basis and can include a broad range of items before, during and after the winter event, including: when were plows or spreaders deployed, what operations were conducted through the storm (plowing, spreading, clean up), anti-icing in advance of the storm (if conditions were appropriate for anti-icing), documents and information recorded by the contractor.

Other factors are considered such as driver behaviour, weather information and the highway layout. We do monitor contractor performance and do apply significant financial consequences when we find contractors have not performed as per the terms of the contract.

We have applied consequences this winter season to all of the AMCs in this region.

While individual payment issues cannot be disclosed publicly, they are administered according to the contract documents.We do not release specific information on financial non-conformances or the specific amount of consequences imposed on contractors, as this is a contractual matter between the Ministry and the contractor.