It may be nearly summer but a new maintenance contractor for most of the Coquihalla is already looking ahead to winter.

Yellowhead Road and Bridge will be taking over on Canada Day for maintenance on highways in the Nicola Region.

General manager Dave Duncan says the company has made a big investment in new gear and materials to meet new provincial standards for winter maintenance.

“There’s no doubt the Coquihalla Highway is one of the province’s primary corridors. It’s critical for truck traffic, it’s critical for movement of goods and people. We come in confident in our abilities to do a good job, but also very respectful of not only the topography and climate of it but also criticality of it for the province,” Duncan says.

“Obviously the increased patrol frequency during storm events, from the previous four hours to 90 minutes, that takes more equipment and resources. And then in addition to that, the requirement to, post-storm event, to turn the highway to bare conditions within 24 hours, when the highway is minus-nine or warmer. That’s a new requirement as well.”

Other new provincial standards will include increased communication during storms or highway incidents, as well as increasing the patrol frequency to four hours when a storm is forecast; the previous standard for that was 24 hours.

The Nicola region for highway maintenance includes sections of the Coquihalla north and south of Merritt and part of the Okanagan Connector.