SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) – Phil Jones, a snow inspector for the city of Springfield, drove a public works pickup down Laurel Street Thursday morning.
After a few blocks, he pulled over and grabbed the laptop off the mount on the dashboard. Jones clicked the stretch he’d just inspected on a map of city streets, showing blue for “uninvestigated,” and switched it to orange for “patches of ice and snow.”
“The main objective is clear curb to curb, but right now, I say patches of ice and snow because this whole lane here is snow,” he said, pointing to the outer lane of the street. “I put that in, and then once I save it, this turns orange.”
Jones is trying out a new software program that allows inspectors to track road conditions during winter storms in close-to-real time.
Engineers from the public works and information technology departments built the program that they hope will make the snow-removal process more efficient and provide better information to the public during snowstorms.The program and accompanying map are in testing phases, according to Public Works Director Mark Mahoney, so the information is only available on the city’s internal system. But the goal is to put the map on the city’s website by next winter.
[Source:-The Washington Times]