Where is the snow plow? City of Ann Arbor considers automated snowplow tracking system
Snow is in the forecast for Ann Arbor, and though it's unlikely to be a storm vigorous enough to create the need for plowing, it is enough to have citizens starting to think about how they will make it through the winter.
During snow emergencies, the City of Ann Arbor maintains a Snow Desk, which coordinates efforts to keep the streets clear. The Ann Arbor City Council tonight is considering a resolution to improve the city's ability to manage its snowplow fleet. A $200,000 project would add automatic vehicle location to up to 100 city vehicles, using GPS to track the fleet and report on key information. This would be designed to replace the current system of tracking snow plowing status, which is done by manually updating a Web page based on polling plow drivers by radio and phone.
Details follow. The resolution is on council's agenda as AVL Project.
What did they ask for?
The request for proposals spelled out a series of requirements for real time tracking of vehicle information for 100 municipal vehicles, with first priority to tracking snow plows. The proposal stated the system would:
Display, as part of the snow plow implementation, in real-time, the current vehicle locations and plowed areas for the current storm through a website. Additionally, citizens will be able to view snow-plowing results from previous storms, conduct ad-hoc replays and perform historical investigations.
Staff evaluated 11 competing proposals, and selected for the council's approval a system from Radio Satellite Integrators. This was based in part on the company's experience with other public works systems.
What should we expect?
I looked for other areas of the country that had snow plow tracking systems in place, and found this report on online snowplow tracking for Washington, DC, area roads from the Fox News affiliate in that area. The short video below gives an overview of the sort of information provided to citizens there; the Ann Arbor system will certainly be different in its details.
Evaluation of AVL system in Indiana
An evaluation of an automated vehicle location tracking system in Indiana conducted in 2009 gives details of the pluses and minuses of a system like this. The Indiana program ran into severe communications problems, when the radios it had installed for communications with vehicles were not reliable enough to keep a connection to report data back. Even with that set of problems, the report did suggest that having improved real time information about snow plows allowed for better management control of snow operations, and the report attributed some fraction of a significant savings on the cost of salt to having better insight into actual conditions.
Last year's snow roundup
For a storm last February, I did a roundup of snow tracking systems in the area, a useful reference for the next storm.
Edward Vielmetti chases after snowplows for AnnArbor.com.
Comments
jcj
Fri, Nov 5, 2010 : 5:40 p.m.
"Additionally, citizens will be able to view snow-plowing results from previous storms, conduct ad-hoc replays and perform historical investigations." Just one more in a long line of lame brain ideas from this administration. What difference does it make to me if I KNOW they will plow my street at 9pm or they plow it at 9pm without my knowing? Does anyone think that the brain dead that leave their cars on the street will check to see when the plows are coming and move them to the drive. Anyone that has been through a couple Ann Arbor winter storms has a pretty good idea when their street will be plowed.
AACity12
Thu, Nov 4, 2010 : 10:41 p.m.
Are you kidding me??? The city just laid off firefighters cause they were so broke! On top of that firetrucks and police cars don't even have a system like that. The dispatcher has to poll firetrucks and cop cars by radio to figure out who is closest to emergencies. Does this make sense we would buy it for snowplows to use maybe a dozen times a year when our public safety could use it everyday? Ridiculous. Not sure why I am shocked anymore.
Brad
Thu, Nov 4, 2010 : 6:48 p.m.
So how many of those hundred are actually plows, and why is there a need to track the others in real-time? And is there really a need to track the plows in real-time for that matter?
RUKiddingMe
Thu, Nov 4, 2010 : 6:14 p.m.
johnnya2, the roof leak is not a valid analogy. A more realistic scenario would be spending a lot of money on some type of roof leak detection unit that detects leaks and repairs them automatically for that one leaky spot, leaving the rest of the roof to deteriorate, and then that very expensive unit must also be replaced or fixed the same number of times as the original leak. Ann Arbor contantly throws vast amounts of money into barely legitimate projects, justifying it with "potential" savings, but then the savings don't show up, and often the project will be replaced again way before any kind of payoff might have happened with the first project anyway. For instance, paying 2 million dollars for new electronic meters which, due to savings from not having to maintain the old meters (but you still have to maintain the new ones, probably at more expense than for the old ones)and no need for meter maiding, will pay for themselves in about 60 years. Then those meters are replaced with some new system, using the same explanation, in 5 years, and so on. One guy fixing the roof makes sense. The way the city does it does not.
johnnya2
Thu, Nov 4, 2010 : 3:20 p.m.
Commenters are already showing why nothing ever gets done for the better, They refuse to realize paying for something in the short term pays for itself in the LONG RUN. We could have roads that last longer, if people were willing to pay for something long term over short term. This is one reason a balanced budget is a BAD idea. Think of it in these terms. Your roof is leaking on your home. You can pay to patch it every year or two, OR you could take out a loan to redo it NOW. The leak would be done for the next 30 years, but it costs considerably more. That is smart deficit spending. The Michigan constitution does not allow that.
5c0++ H4d13y
Thu, Nov 4, 2010 : 1:44 p.m.
@a2phiggy like you I'm transplant. @Sam represents your typical Michigander that's become so accustomed to the decaying infrastructure in Michigan that they don't even realize that other parts of the country don't live this way. Most things here were built on the cheap, asphalt over bricks, above ground power lines, smallest sewer pipe money could buy, and not maintained after that.
Sam
Thu, Nov 4, 2010 : 12:36 p.m.
@a2phiggy wrote: "As a recent transplant to A2, I am stunned at the state of our roads (regardless of season) and the apparent apathy of the leadership of this City with respect to ensuring the safety of residents." Welcome to Michigan! We'll never have enough money to keep up with how fast our roads deteriorate here. The entire city of Ann Arbor was basically built on what used to be a giant swamp (as was the rest of Mid-Michigan). The only way to solve the condition of the road problem would be to engineer a whole new way to make roads... Also, related to the story above, on facebook I replied: "...they could put out a bounty of $25,000.00 for the team from the region that designs the best plow tracking system based off of open source software and hardware.... They could spend the 200K to convert the trucks to biodeisel, run them off of garden and yardwaste collected year round processed into biofuel, and cut fuel costs out completely..."
a2phiggy
Thu, Nov 4, 2010 : 12:25 p.m.
While it's important to monitor the efficiency of the units out on the road, it seems that investing that money into additional, desperately needed staff and plows might be a better use of the funds. As a recent transplant to A2, I am stunned at the state of our roads (regardless of season) and the apparent apathy of the leadership of this City with respect to ensuring the safety of residents.
5c0++ H4d13y
Thu, Nov 4, 2010 : 12:15 p.m.
Chicago had this almost a decade ago and it seemed to help. It's good to know where they have been, blade up or down and "salt" on or off. But then again it doesn't take a rocket scientists with a GPS system to know that during the work week during rush hour the city MUST plow out the Observatory and Geddes intersection so the AATA busses can make the turn without getting stuck and clogging the intersection for all traffic. Right? I'm guessing the city is utterly clueless about this because it's always a problem.
townie
Thu, Nov 4, 2010 : 11:46 a.m.
These are the kinds of luxury gadgets our local government does not need and cannot afford. Put the money into real equipment and personnel and not yet another techno-boondoggle.