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The biggest trend John Hood, Bomag America’s sales manager for paving and milling products in the U.S., sees in this market isn’t even on paving equipment; it’s with the people using the equipment or paying for the jobs. Paving contractors and customers have become more educated and sophisticated, Hood says. As a result, expectations on equipment and job results are higher. “As much as machines have grown in sophistication, contractors have grown more,” he says. “Everyone is looking to do a better job.” And Hood sees this as a good thing. He says contractor education is important because no matter what features you have on a paver, you can only do so much with the equipment.

To satisfy higher expectations from both contractors and customers, Hood says the trend in small and mid-sized pavers has become making equipment of higher quality. And better quality machines, whether they are small or large, benefit all contractors, he adds. “Residential contractors benefit because they can do more driveways during the day and the quality of the job is higher. If you’re a commercial contractor: more production. You can do the job quicker, in a more professional manner, keep your property management pleased, and utilize them for referrals.”

A lot of highway-class contractors are now acquiring small machines because the equipment has reached a quality level where it can do some fill in work that can match the level of road-class pavers, Hood says. “The quality of the paving machines on the market today is much better than it was five years ago. And from what it was 10 years ago, it’s night and day. Ten years ago people just said ‘well yeah, it’s a small paver, and it can’t really do this stuff, and you can’t expect this.’ That’s gone. Now expectations that small paving manufacturers are falling under are basically the same things that large ones are.”

Hood says he has also seen a trend in moving from tow behind and gravity fed pavers to conveyor fed pavers. Bomag now offers three models of mid-sized conveyor fed pavers: the 4413, 814, and 815.

The biggest change Bomag has made to its mid-sized pavers is with the electrical and hydraulic systems. For example, the mid-sized units now have screed automation. Screed automation allows a contractor to use sonic or lasers to read and adjust screed depth when putting material down. This automation results in more precise depth, more consistent finishes, and more consistent usage than manual adjustments, Hood says. “That automation in the past has always been reserved to larger pavers - highway class pavers - and it’s really made its way into the commercial class paving industry.”