snow road

Delaware’s Department of Transportation (DelDOT) in the US has released a new web-based programme to provide citizens and the agency with real-time locations of snow plows during snowstorms.

Using the Snow Plow Tracker, residents will be able to obtain real-time locations of DelDOT’s plows during snow storms on their smartphones or computer.

The web-based programme’s global positioning system (GPS) sensors are deployed in more than 300 plows in order to transfer their locations to a programme to display each plow’s position.

DelDOT secretary Jennifer Cohan said: "I’m a huge proponent of transparency in government and the snow plow tracker is a great way for us to show the people of Delaware how hard we work on their behalf during snowstorms.

"The snow plow tracker is a great way for us to show the people of Delaware how hard we work on their behalf during snowstorms."

"We will be testing and refining the snow plow tracker this winter, and we have plans to add more features to this system in the coming years."

The new application costs $22,440 and aims to provide better information to the public.

DelDOT TMC director Gene Donaldson noted that the Snow Plow Tracker will be activated only during snow occurrences.

Donaldson added: "All of our 330 plows have this tracking software installed. The public will only see the trucks that are in-motion, whether they are actively plowing, or salting, or perhaps in transit to an assigned location so they can begin plowing and salting elsewhere."

Although the web-based programme currently is not equipped with features showing a truck plowing, salting, or driving to another location, officials are planning to have this upgrade by the next year or two, following the results of testing this year.

Regarding the operational aspect of the app, Donaldson explained that at any one time, not all of the 300 trucks will be visible on the app.

Donaldson added: "Whenever a vehicle is idle or stopped for more than 10min, it will no longer be shown. During snow events, trucks idle for various reasons, including meal, restroom or rest breaks, mechanical issues, driver changes, reloading with salt or fueling."

Image: New web programme enables residents to know real-time locations of snow plows during storms. Photo: courtesy of Dr Joseph Valks via freedigitalphotos.net.