GPS Technology Aids Winter Road Maintenance Teams

Being responsible for clearing hundreds or even thousands of miles of snow-covered highways in the dead of winter is nothing to sneeze at. But that’s exactly the responsibility that various cities and counties bear every winter.

For those living in the southern U.S., snowfalls tend to be infrequent and generally light. But those who live in the North expect lots of snow each winter, and they still have to get to work, church, school, and so on. So snowplows and other road-clearing equipment have to hit the streets . . . often in circumstances that are hazardous. It’s important for dispatchers to be able to know where vehicles are, and it’s also important to be able to keep track of which roads have been cleared, salted, and sanded. With the advent of GPS technology, all of this and more is now possible.

To address these issues, Cirus Controls unveiled the GPS DataSmart™ Reporting System in August 2013. According to the company, GPS DataSmart software can do all of the following for road crews and their dispatchers:

• Reduce costs by cutting down on labor and wasteful use of ice-melting materials by metering and controlling the spreading of salt, sand, and other ice-melting materials


• Generate maps showing which roads have been cleared and the methods used to clear them (i.e., plowing or spreading salt or sand, etc.). Mapping formats include Microsoft Map Point, GIS, and Google Earth.


• Generate reports on data received that are viewable from any computer in various formats (GPX, CSV, Excel, KML, and so on)


• Report vehicular speed and location


• Report the air temperature as well as the temperature of the driving surface


• Monitor not only the location of the snowplow but the position of the actual plow itself

Paul Mortell, president of Cirus Controls, recently stated, “”The introduction of GPS DataSmart and its unique reporting and mapping capabilities provides our customers with data that can be immediately used to make better winter road maintenance decisions.”

Cirus Controls is located in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The company produce systems related to winter maintenance needs, including hydraulic systems, spreader controls, snowplow controls, and telematics systems. The DataSmart Reporting System GPS technology was developed and is owned by Cirus Controls.

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GPS Technology Aids Winter Road Maintenance Teams