Buffalo’s GPS monitoring of snowplows ought to be extra correct throughout this storm, DPW chief says

With snow on the way, Buffalo Public Works Commissioner Nathan Marton said the city’s fleet is “armed and ready to respond.”

“It will not be repeated in terms of snow amount (like) the November storm. But our fleet is ready,” Marton said.

This time, residents should see improvements to the new GPS tracking the city rolled out in response to last month’s snowfall.

A classic lake-effect snowstorm is forming and is expected to cover parts of western New York beginning tonight.

“The GPS is still functional,” he said. “It was operational during the last storm. It was always in operation. It was always public. We’ve been working on this since…

“We’ve improved the system,” he said during a storm briefing at City Hall. “The reporting accuracy is there, so we’re better performing and more accurate than the last storm.”

The GPS tracking will allow residents to view the status of snow removal along 800 miles of streets in the city on an interactive map.

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GPS tracking aided internal snow removal operations and emergency response during last month’s storm, but it failed to properly share the same data publicly, city officials said.

Most of the issues were with functionality and mapping, including mapping complications where the map the city was using to generate what the public was seeing didn’t have the accurate metrics, causing some reporting issues. Also, some of the GPS devices turned off and on sporadically. And some of the units were non-functional.

Marton said crews will begin pre-salting on Thursday tonight and ramp up operations throughout the evening. There will be about 30 plows and elevators clearing streets across the city once the snow “really starts to organize itself,” Marton said.

City officials also held discussions with New York State officials Friday morning about snow control assistance and will hold another meeting Friday afternoon to coordinate the assistance.

“We expect some of their help during the storm. We’re coordinating exactly what that’s going to be right now,” Marton said.

With less snowfall expected than last month’s storm, the city doesn’t anticipate having to haul snow to specific locations.

“It’s really going to be a clearing process,” Marton said.

The Buffalo News: Good morning Buffalo

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