June 2026 | Reading time: 6 min

Only very few roads in the world are as famous as the Via Appia in Italy. To today’s road users it is better known as the SS 7 (State Highway 7) and is a part of the Italian highway network.

Wirtgen Performance Tracker and
John Deere Operations Center™

Many sections of the state highway needed resurfacing, and the work had to be carried out on the same day. The contractor made use of the Wirtgen Performance Tracker, in short WPT, to keep track of the individual construction phases. The advantage: thanks to the registration of construction site information with an accuracy measured in centimetres, the smart system delivered the best documentation and billing options. The machine performance data is transmitted to the John Deere Operations Center™ in real-time, where it is saved and stored for use at any later time. This also makes it possible to analyse and evaluate even the smallest details of the work being carried out on several construction sites on the same day. With the new Jobsite Intelligence from the Wirtgen Group, all relevant data such as machine running hours, fuel consumption, or the processed distance are recorded and collected in real-time and made available for flexible end devices. ‘For one thing, we’re using the John Deere Operation Center™, because it brings us the advantages of getting a detailed report of what we have done with the machine at the end of each working day. Especially with regard to documentation of the work that’s been done and the resources we’ve used to do it.’ Site Manager Gerardo Grippa is very pleased with it, and reports: ‘The John Deere Operation Center™ gives us the best answers to everything we’ve been looking for.’

More comfort ensures higher efficiency.

The sweeping unit – a new option for ensuring clean milling work

The large milling machine loads the removed asphalt surface material directly into a tipper truck. To guarantee a clean milling pattern, Wirtgen has developed an option that can be mounted on the machine whenever it’s needed: the sweeping unit. ‘This solution from Wirtgen saves us a considerable amount of time on the job by eliminating the need for deploying an additional mobile sweeper and an extra driver, making a significant contribution to our overall resource-efficiency. At the same time, the sweeping unit enables us to keep the construction site much cleaner as the work progresses’, explains Grippa.

A central brush sweeps across the entire milling width and round brushes at each side keep the milled edges clean. The unit is controlled by the ground crew. If required, the brush can be turned to sweep the material to the left or the right side. In this way, the operator can flexibly control the direction to enable the milled material to be deposited in the direction of the next milling cut. The side brushes are ideal for keeping the roadside verges clean.

The impressive result speaks for itself: where the asphalt showed countless cracks before the work began, the freshly milled surface now provides an ideal substrate for the paving of the new asphalt layer.