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NPORS Gritter and Snowplough Training (N802)
Winter service is the job where everything is against you: night work, ice, poor visibility, tired drivers and equipment that has sat in a shed since March. Two days covers attaching and setting the spreader and the plough, spreading to a rate rather than by eye, and ploughing without taking out an ironwork cover. Run on request, on your own vehicles, ideally before the season starts.
Why candidates choose Acadame
What makes our N802 Gritter and Snowplough different
About this course
The NPORS N802 category covers gritters and snowploughs: the winter service vehicle with a spreader body on the back, a plough on the front, or both. It applies to highway authority and contractor winter service, and equally to the private operations that keep industrial estates, distribution centres, airports, hospitals, business parks, construction sites and large private roads open when the weather turns.
Two days starts with the equipment, because most winter service problems begin in the yard rather than on the road. Attaching and detaching a plough safely, which is a real crush and manual handling risk in the dark. Checking and setting a spreader, understanding spread rate, spread width and pattern, and knowing what a blocked or worn spinner does to the treatment. Loading the body from a salt barn or a hopper without overloading the vehicle or burying the driver in the process. Pre use checks on kit that has been standing for months.
Then the road. Winter service is night work in bad conditions, and the course covers driving to the conditions with a heavy, high and oddly balanced vehicle, using the plough without catching ironwork, gullies, kerbs or road studs, spreading on a route in the right sequence, working around other traffic and pedestrians who are having an equally bad night, conspicuity and beacons, and the fatigue and lone working realities of a call out at three in the morning. It also covers what to do when something goes wrong, because the vehicle that breaks down in a blizzard is usually the only one on that route.
- The vehicle and the equipment: spreader body, auger and spinner, plough and its mounting, hydraulics, controls and in cab systems
- Attaching and detaching a plough safely, including the crush, manual handling and lighting issues of doing it at night
- Setting the spreader: spread rate, width and pattern, pre wet systems where fitted, and checking the equipment is doing what the display says
- Loading from a salt barn or hopper, load distribution, weight and axle limits, and the effect of a shifting load on handling
- Driving and ploughing winter service: a heavy high vehicle in ice and snow, gradients and braking, conspicuity and beacons, working in traffic at night, blade angle and height, ironwork, gullies, kerbs and road studs, windrows and where the ploughed material ends up
- Pre use and running checks after months of storage, defect reporting, breakdown and lone working, fatigue, and duties under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 and PUWER 1998
How completing this course helps you
- The NPORS N802 Gritter and Snowplough category, registered with NPORS and recognised nationally
- An NPORS Red Trained Operator card, or a Blue Competent Operator card where you hold the relevant NVQ, carrying the CSCS logo while your CITB Health, Safety and Environment test is in date
- Drivers who set a spreader properly, which treats the route and stops you burning salt you have already paid for
- A winter rota that is carded and trained before the first call out rather than during it
Who should attend?
Highway authority and winter service contractors, facilities and estates teams at hospitals, universities, airports and business parks, distribution centres and logistics operators, industrial estates and manufacturing sites, construction sites keeping access open, farms and rural contractors on private and unadopted roads, and seasonal or standby drivers brought in for the winter. Anyone whose job is keeping a surface open when it freezes. If the machine is an agricultural tractor with a spreader or blade on it, ask us at enquiry which category fits your setup best.
Entry requirements. You should be at least eighteen, fit enough to attach and detach equipment, climb on and off a vehicle and work a night shift in cold weather, and able to follow spoken and written English well enough for the theory test, though we can arrange an interpreter or a reader on request. A driving licence for the vehicle class is a matter for whoever drives on the public road rather than a requirement of the NPORS category itself, which is about operating the winter service equipment, though most candidates are drivers. For the version of the card that carries the CSCS logo you need a CITB Health, Safety and Environment test pass at Operatives level taken within the last two years, which we book for you. Tell us at enquiry what vehicles, spreaders and ploughs you run and whether the work is public highway or private.
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Course content
What you will cover
Classroom on the equipment, spread rates, routes and the duties, then the rest of the time on the vehicle attaching, setting, spreading and ploughing, with theory and practical testing at the end.
The equipment, the treatment and the night
- Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 and PUWER 1998 as they apply to winter service operations
- The operator handbook, vehicle payload and axle limits, and the equipment's stated limits
- Major components: spreader body, auger and spinner, pre wet system where fitted, plough and mounting, hydraulics and in cab controls
- Spread rate, spread width and pattern, and what worn, blocked or misaligned equipment does to the treatment
- Attaching and detaching a plough: crush points, manual handling, lighting and working alone in a yard at night
- Loading from a salt barn or hopper, load distribution, load shift and overloading
- Driving and ploughing in ice and snow: blade angle and height, ironwork, gullies, kerbs and road studs, windrows and where material is thrown
- Conspicuity and beacons, other traffic and pedestrians, fatigue, lone working and breakdown procedure
On the vehicle
- Pre use checks of the vehicle, spreader, plough, hydraulics, lights and beacons after storage, and reporting a defect
- Attaching and detaching a plough safely, and connecting hydraulics and electrics
- Loading the spreader body and checking the load is within limits and evenly distributed
- Setting spread rate, width and pattern for the treatment required, and confirming the equipment is delivering it
- Spreading along a defined route with the correct pattern, including at junctions and turning points
- Ploughing a surface with correct blade angle and height, avoiding ironwork and kerbs and controlling the windrow
- Manoeuvring and reversing with the equipment fitted, and working in restricted space
- Cleaning down, washing off, parking, securing the vehicle and leaving it ready for the next call out
Method of assessment
How the N802 gritter and snowplough test works
NPORS assess the category by theory test and practical test. Training and assessment run together, and the practical is carried out on the vehicles, spreaders and ploughs your drivers will actually take out.
1. Enquiry and group
Tell us how many drivers, where, what vehicles and equipment you run and whether the work is highway or private. Three sit the novice course with one instructor and one vehicle, six can sit the experienced worker test. We quote per group.
2. Pre course check
We work out who is a genuine novice, who is an experienced worker and who is due a refresher, check whether the CITB Health, Safety and Environment test is in date for the CSCS logo version of the card, and take the details NPORS need to register.
3. Training
Classroom on the equipment, treatment and duties, then the rest of the time on the vehicle. Where we are at your depot we use your own spreaders and ploughs and, where the timing allows, part of your actual route.
4. Theory test
The NPORS theory test, open questions and multiple choice, covering legislation, equipment components, spread rates and patterns, attaching a plough, loading and limits, and driving and ploughing in winter conditions.
5. Practical test
You carry out pre use checks, attach and set the equipment, load and check the vehicle, spread to a set rate along a route and plough a surface under control, assessed against the NPORS test specification.
6. Registration and card
We register the pass with NPORS and apply for your card. With a valid CITB Health, Safety and Environment test it carries the CSCS logo, as a Red Trained Operator card or a Blue Competent Operator card if you hold the relevant NVQ.
After the course
Winter service is a plan, not a vehicle
The training gets a driver competent on the equipment, but a winter service operation stands or falls on the things around it: the route order and who decides when to go out, the standby rota and how people are called, where the salt is and whether the barn is accessible in the dark, and whether the kit was checked in September or found to be seized in December. A course run at the depot before the season usually exposes several of those, and we will tell you what the drivers raise.
The other thing is that winter service is nearly always somebody's second job. The driver on the gritter at four in the morning is a highways operative, a groundworker or a warehouse driver the rest of the year, and their other categories matter too. If you are bringing an instructor to the depot, it is usually worth looking at the whole set of categories your seasonal drivers need rather than just this one.
- N714 Safety at Street and Road Works where winter service works on the public highway
- N217 Road Sweeper, often the same vehicles and the same drivers in the other three seasons
- N601 Agricultural Tractor where estates and farms run winter equipment on a tractor
- CITB Health, Safety and Environment test booked with us for the CSCS logo version of the card
Build your course
Who is coming, and how many
We do not run these to a timetable. The course is built around your people: how experienced they are and how many of them there are, which is what sets the length and the cost. Pick the mix and we will come back with a date and a price.
The course builder needs JavaScript. Without it, tell us how many people and what experience they have and we will price it up.
N802 Gritter and Snowplough FAQs
Gritters and snowploughs: the winter service vehicle with a spreader body, a plough, or both. It covers attaching and setting the equipment, loading, spreading to a rate and pattern, and ploughing, along with the driving and safety realities of night work in poor conditions.
NPORS publish a two day novice duration, with three candidates, one instructor and one vehicle. A driver who has run winter service before usually takes the shorter experienced worker test route, where NPORS allow six in a session, and a refresher is around a day. We confirm the length when we quote.
Before the season. Winter service rotas are often filled in September and October and the first call out can come earlier than anyone expects. Running the course at the depot in late summer or early autumn means the drivers are carded, the equipment gets checked while there is still time to fix it, and nobody is learning a plough mounting for the first time in the dark.
Not for the NPORS category itself, which is about operating the winter service equipment rather than driving on the public road. Where the vehicle is driven on the highway, the licence for it is a separate matter for the employer. Drivers working only on private estates, sites and roads still need the category.
Yes. A great deal of winter service happens on industrial estates, distribution centres, hospital sites, airports, business parks and construction sites rather than on the adopted highway, and the equipment and the skills are the same. Tell us at enquiry which you are, because the route planning and traffic considerations differ.
Because spreading by eye either fails to treat the surface or throws away salt you have paid for and then have to sweep up. Spread rate, width and pattern are set on the equipment and need checking against what the spinner is actually delivering, especially on kit that has been standing all summer or has worn parts.
The NPORS N802 category. Without a relevant NVQ that is a Red Trained Operator card, valid two years. With the relevant NVQ it is a Blue Competent Operator card, valid five years. Either carries the CSCS logo only while you hold a CITB Health, Safety and Environment test pass taken within the last two years. A traditional NPORS card without the logo suits highway and estates work outside construction.
Yes, and it is much the better option. Drivers train on your own vehicles, spreaders and ploughs, learn the mountings and control systems they will use in the dark, and where the timing allows the practical can cover part of your actual route. There are no scheduled dates: we run it when you can release vehicles and drivers.
NPORS courses are priced per course, not per person. What you are paying for is the instructor, the registered tester and the machine time, so the figure turns on four things: the category, which route your operators need (novice, experienced, conversion or refresher), how many people are coming, and whether we run it on your site or at one of ours. It is also why a squad works out considerably cheaper per head than sending operators out one at a time. Use the course builder on this page: tell it who is coming and it works out how many days the course takes and how many times it has to run, which is what the price is built from. Then ask us and you will get a figure for that exact group rather than a list price with conditions attached.
We run NPORS courses across the UK rather than out of one fixed centre, and for most categories the better answer is that we come to you: your operators are assessed on the machine they will be using anyway, nobody loses a day travelling, and for a group it costs less. If you would rather come to us, we have centres at Trent House in Stoke, Pride Park in Derby, Europa House in Manchester and Kingsway House in Liverpool. Tell us where the work is and we will say honestly which way round makes more sense.
There is no fixed timetable to wait for. NPORS courses here are run to order, which means the dates are built around your programme rather than ours, and a single operator or a full squad can normally be booked in within a couple of weeks. If you have a card about to expire or a start date to hit, say so when you enquire and we will work to it.
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