From now until the middle of April, Roads Service has almost 300 staff and over 130 gritters on standby every night to ensure our main roads are salted to help drivers cope with winter conditions.
There are over 7,000 kilometres or 4,400 miles of roads across Northern Ireland treated with salt in around three and a half hours.
Over 800 tonnes of salt is used on average for the massive logistical undertaking of treating the entire route just once.
Roads Minister Danny Kennedy said Roads Service had ample reserves of 110,000 tonnes of salt which are topped-up regularly during the winter.
He said: “With winter fast approaching Roads Service is prepared to tackle the enormous job of keeping the main roads across Northern Ireland open.
“Our main effort will be to keep the motorways and trunk roads open. We will then focus on other main roads and busy urban link roads. As we seen earlier this year, even our best efforts can be hampered by heavy and sudden falls of snow.
“In addition to treating icy roads, during prolonged periods of snow, all salt spreading machinery will be fitted with snow ploughs.
“In very deep snow, Roads Service will use its snow blowers, the latest of which can clear 1,600 tonnes of snow in an hour.”
Mr Kennedy concluded: “No one can accurately predict what the weather has in store for us. However, our operations will continue until the road network is cleared, no matter how long that takes.”