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Snowed in? Track Your City’s Snow Plows with GPS Apps

January 27, 2015  - By
PlowNYC-W

Photo: PlowNYC

Snow plows in many cities cleaning up the snow from a winter storm that blasted the Northeast are being tracked with GPS. One website application, PlowNYC, provides real-time updates on where the plows are in the Big Apple, according to CBS News. PlowNYC was developed by Rastrac, a GPS fleet tracking and remote asset management solution company.

The New York City sanitation department is deploying 2,550 plows and more than 2,400 workers to combat the storm. “The city actually tracks all the snow plows and aggregates all of that information and make it available to New Yorkers on this map,” data scientist Ben Wellington told CBS News. “Green lines on the map show the roads that have been plowed in the last hour whereas the blue line shows the streets that have been plowed in the last one to three hours.”

New York isn’t the only city applying this kind of technology. For the first time, Pittsburgh residents can track their plows in real time. Chicago has been sharing it’s plow data for the last several winters.

“I think for the public, it gives them a sense of security to see where things are happening and feel like they can hold us accountable,” New York City sanitation commissioner Kathryn Garcia told CBS News. “At the end of the day, we work for them.” The apps also reduce the number of calls to city call centers.

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2 Comments on "Snowed in? Track Your City’s Snow Plows with GPS Apps"

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  1. Mark Adamczyk says:

    Wish we had a similar system here in the UK!