Kässbohrer: Efficient and Sustainable Snow Grooming

Daredevil jumps and a spectacular setup made the Nines this year’s highlight for snowboarding and freeskiing fans. They eagerly and especially awaited the public day in Crans Montana, Switzerland, when spectators were finally permitted again after a two-year coronavirus break. On the newly designed course the world’s best snowboarders and freeskiers demonstrated both amazing courage and extraordinary skills with maneuvers like the downward spiral, the perfect jump and the sphere.

Preparing slopes ahead of the day’s events, Kässbohrer Geländefahrzeug AG snow groomers are the main reason why freestyle aces at the Nines were able to rely on optimal snow conditions for their high-risk maneuvers in the park. The bright red PistenBully machines from Swabia transfer up to 520 hp to their tracks and make short shrift of the steepest slopes. The Crans Montana snowboard park is just finger practice for a PistenBully. Preparing the legendary Streif run in Kitzbühel for the Skiing World Cup requires much more by way of power, precision, and nerves.

In fog, driving snow or the middle of the night, PistenBully drivers often have to work on totally frozen slopes and gradients of up to 100 percent in extremely heavy vehicles, so safety is crucial for Kässbohrer. As they prepare the slopes the heavyweight snow groomers are attached to winch cables up to 1,400 meters long. The cables are attached in turn to anchoring hooks along the slope to prevent the PistenBully from slipping and damaging the slope – or from plummeting downhill.

The winch cables pose a potential threat to other snow groomers and all drivers must know at all times the precise position of all other vehicles in the same skiing area. Each machine shares its location with the others in real time. A communication module with a Telekom SIM card on board the PistenBully ensures a reliable connection. It relays the vehicle’s location data to the other snow groomers by GSM or LTE so that every driver can see in real time on a monitor screen in his cockpit the precise position of the other vehicles. Other objects such as snow machines, anchoring wells or skilifts can also be shown on the screen.

The current snow depth beneath the vehicle is also determined and shown on the screen. Kässbohrer uses LiDAR technology (see info box) for snow depth measurement, which is essential for optimal preparation of ski runs. This sensor technology, installed on the snow groomer’s roof, measures the snow depth in real time up to 50 meters ahead and to the left and right of the run. Each driver can see live on the map where the others have already prepared a slope and where they have not done, so no area needs to be covered twice. That saves time and fuel – a far from insignificant factor in slope preparation. Greater efficiency is also one of Kässbohrer customers’ main concerns. In view of climate change snow is becoming an increasingly valuable resource for ski run and cable car operators. The more carefully they use existing natural snow and the less technical snow they need to produce, the longer they can maintain skiing operations and the winter sports season in their skiing areas. Increasingly, their guests also expect a sustainable winter sports experience.

By connecting its PistenBully vehicles on the cell network Kässbohrer can add fleet management, monitoring, and remote servicing or maintenance to the services it offers to its customers. Not only drivers but also slope operators can see where their machines are and how they are deployed. Irregularities can be identified and routes and routines optimized, operating data and consumption compared. Accidents and damage events can be analyzed, maintenance better planned, idle times evaluated and unnecessary journeys avoided. Customers save not only water, electricity and fuel but also employees’ working hours and deployment time of their machines. Kässbohrer says this can cut the cost of slope preparation by up to 25 percent.

A further advantage of networking via Kässbohrer’s partner Deutsche Telekom is the Bonn, Germany, based company’s global footprint. Kässbohrer sells its PistenBully all over the world and with Telekom can offer its customers both national and international roaming. Kässbohrer snow groomers are up and running in the networks of Telekom and its roaming partners wherever skiing areas require professional slope care.