About QRoad

QRoad BV is a specialist in non-destructive measurements of bearing capacity and layer thickness of pavements. They have 4 very experienced employees and carry out assignments all over the world.

QRoad focuses primarily on testing, which means that they provide testing data for their customers. They do also have direct access to experienced independent pavement engineers for bigger maintenance contracts, but QRoad would rather just provide their clients with reliable data, as this means avoiding comprehensive and complicated contracts on maintenance work. The customers are mainly big consultants who are not in possession of their own equipment, and QRoad does services for roads, airports, container terminals, dikes, and industrial sites. They guarantee flexibility, reliability, and speed, this is very important for them.

At the moment, QRoad is working on a large wind farm, for wind energy, testing the roads, so that the big trucks with the blades will not get into trouble due to damages on the road.

The equipment from Dynatest

For the data collection, QRoad has two Dynatest Heavy Weight Deflectometers (HWD) and one Dynatest Light Weight Deflectometer (LWD). Due to the fact, that the Managing Director, Henk Jan Roeke used to work in the Dutch department of Dynatest and because the company made an agreement with Dynatest to take over some of the former equipment in the Dutch department, it was natural to continue with the Dynatest brand. However, as flexibility, reliability and speed are of high importance for QRoad, they will never use any other brand.  As Henk Jan Roeke explains” Dynatest equipment is the best in the market. If you talk about Falling Weight Deflectometer, then Dynatest is no. 1. But the equipment is also very user-friendly, if you know your equipment and your software, you can get a high production on a daily basis.  With other equipment, it is a bit more complicated to match the production you can get with theDynatest equipment for the number of test points. The Dynatest equipment delivers high benefits and value for us”.

But QRoad is also preferring Dynatest because it is easy to get in touch with the service department. “If you need assistance, you can always get in touch with people – also during weekends and outside of normal working hours. The support is very good and very quick. If you need something like parts you just make a call to the sales department and the next day you can have it. For other companies, it works a bit differently, but for me personally, it is due to the quality of the equipment and the user-friendliness of the equipment that I prefer Dynatest” continues Henk.

Henk Jan Roeke, Managing Director of QRoad with one of his Dynatest Heavy Weight Deflectometers (HWD).

Calibration is not a question

Delivering reliable data for the customers is of the highest importance for QRoad. This is the reason Henk Jan Roeke has taken his truck on the road to Denmark today. Henk is visiting the HQ of Dynatest to do a yearly calibration of his equipment. QRoad has a contract with Dynatest for both of their machines which are calibrated every year and there is no question about calibrating his equipment – as Henk explains “Delivering the right values to the customers is of high importance for us and if you drive through Europe on bumping roads, then a technician from Dynatest must check if the values that the machine produces are still the right values. Like a car needs maintenance, so does this kind of equipment. If you do not maintain it, it will break down at some point.”

The future for QRoad BV

The future for the QRoad is not like a bumpy road – the business is very steady, and Henk has a good explanation for this: “It is not like selling ice-creams, this is really technical things and even some of our clients do not know what we are doing, it demands high expertise. It is a bit strange market to sell in, it can be quite tough, the customers need to understand why they need to measure and get the data. Some clients say that they do not need this kind of testing, they just send an employee out to make notes and if they see a crack or a bad section, they will just call the company who does the asphalt work, and they will repair the road. They say that they do not need this testing.”

Unfortunately, there are still a lot of people thinking like that. But at QRoad they try to explain to the clients that if they do this kind of testing, they can first of all check the construction of a new road, to test if it differs from the promise from the constructor firm, but they can also monitor it for maintenance use. So, if the clients e.g. test just after construction of the road and then after 3 years, they will check what the difference is and get a lot of useful information, to make sure that they are not spending too much money and time from the society on maintenance. This is money from all of us.

Hopefully, this message will get out to more clients throughout Europe to ensure that smarter maintenance is done on roads, airports, terminals, dikes and industrial sites, so that we use the money for a better purpose.

Delivering the right values to the customers is of high importance for us and if you drive through Europe on bumping roads, then a technician from Dynatest must check if the values that the machine produces are still the right values. Like a car needs maintenance, so does this kind of equipment. If you do not maintain it, it will break down at some point.”.

Henk Jan Roeke , Managing Director, QRoad BV