COLUMBUS, Ohio -- As the temperature continues to fall, those responsible for clearing the roads and keeping Central Ohioans safe on their way to work or school are gearing up for another busy season. But this year, crews in one county will have new technology to guide them -- all the in the hopes of being more effective and saving taxpayer dollars.
Just about everything about a snow plow is big: the size of the truck, the steel plow on the front, the hopper that holds all that salt and even the sound of the engine. But it's the small things on
Franklin County's plows that officials with the engineer's office said will make the rolling behemoths much more effective and efficient this year.
All of the county's 32 trucks have been fitted with sensors and GPS units that will measure just about everything, from the temperature of the road to how much salt is being spread.
All the information will be sent via radio from the plow to a central server where it will displayed on a map. Supervisors will then be able to literally keep a close eye on their fight against old man winter. "I
can see the location of the vehicle, I can see its air and surface temperature on the road, I can see how much salt it's putting down, whether they're plowing the street at that time, the speed of the vehicle, who is driving the vehicle," said Tom Nutini, Highway Superintendent for the Franklin County Engineer's Office.
Nutini said they can also divert crews to where they're needed most. "We're getting real-time data every ten seconds," he said.
He said a smaller scale of the system was implemented last year involving ten wired plows showed an increase in efficiency, and a decrease in salt usage. "Even with the winter we had last year, we were still up 50 percent storage at the end of the winter," Nutini said.
Having now gone full scale, they hope to save even more salt and taxpayer dollars.
This system cost $4 million. Nutini said the federal government picked up 80 percent of the bill, the county paid 20 percent. He said they have no doubt this system will make up for that cost and continue to save money down the road.
Nutini said the City of Columbus has also gone full scale with this technology as well.
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