Snow sucks, especially in cities. It can cause in-told amounts of congestion due to slower driving speeds and accidents caused. One of the most important things a municipality can do to reduce the impact of snow on driving conditions is to quickly and efficiently plow the streets. Then, if they want to get the most benefit from their plowing, they need some way to let their citizenry now that the streets have been plowed. This is where GPS tracking can come in and make things much easier for municipalities that are interested in serving their communities.
Snow Removal & GPS Tracking
One city has taken this step in serving their community. Buffalo, New York has installed real time GPS tracking on their salt trucks and snowplows. These devices inform the Buffalo Public Works Department certain snow control metrics which they can then make known to the public such as how much removed, the names of the streets that have been plowed, and the status of the salting of the those same streets. According to reports from WKBW, Steve Stepniak said that the plow GPS trackers give the city “…tracking ability, vehicle information ability, whether the plow is down up, spreading salt (WKBW).”
Buffalo installed the systems using federal grant money to the tune of $175,000. The system has already improved efficiency this year, improving street cleanup speeds and making the roads safer. Efficiency improvements are only expected to increase next year as management improves oversight and drivers get used to the new system.
With the success of the snow plow program, Buffalo is attempting to place GPS trackers on all of its 545 different city vehicles. They are currently applying for more federal assistance to get trackers on trash trucks and street sweepers.
Because of the success of Buffalo’s program, other cities that receive large amounts of snowfall are also looking into the program. As long as federal money is available for cities to make these purchases, it will probably be a steady trend for the near future. GPS tracking definitely makes things more efficient by reducing waste