
Trunk Road Gritter Tracker - hjkm
http://scotgov.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=2de764a9303848ffb9a4cac0bd0b1aab
======
BuildTheRobots
I'm amazed Scotland have a real time map with also how long ago a road was
gritted - much respect to them.

And the Gritter names are hilarious - but sadly don't (in my mind) beat
Doncaster's "Gritsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Anti-Slip Machiney"

~~~
Denvercoder9
> I'm amazed Scotland have a real time map with also how long ago a road was
> gritted - much respect to them.

We've the same over in the Netherlands, even including temperature of the road
surface - see
[https://www.rijkswaterstaatstrooit.nl/](https://www.rijkswaterstaatstrooit.nl/).

~~~
nathanm412
Here in Columbus, Ohio, we have a site called the Warrior Watch -
[https://warriorwatch.columbus.gov/ww](https://warriorwatch.columbus.gov/ww)
It does a great job of showing when my street was last plowed and what it's
priority is. We haven't had a lot of use for them this winter though.

~~~
arethuza
One thing worth noting about that map is that it's only for major roads that
appear to be the responsibility of Transport Scotland - local areas have their
own snow clearing coverage e.g. Here is the map (sadly without automatic
updates of gritter locations) for Fife where I live:

[http://arcgisweb.fife.gov.uk/LocalViewEXT/Sites/publicWinter...](http://arcgisweb.fife.gov.uk/LocalViewEXT/Sites/publicWinterGrittting/)

Mind you - the road where I live (which to be fair is rural and up a hill) was
blocked for about a week the last time we had any serious snow and it was some
local farmers with JCBs who actually cleared it.

------
driverdan
Having never heard the terms "trunk road" or "gritter" it took me a little
time to figure out what this was. Correct me if I'm wrong but "trunk road"
appears to mean something like main road and "gritter" seems to mean plow
and/or sanding truck.

~~~
globular-toast
"Main road" is actually considerably more general than trunk road in the Great
Britain. The roads in GB are ordered hierarchically starting with motorways
(although these have restrictions, ie. motorvehicles only), through trunk
roads, primary, secondary, all the way down to byway.

It is important for navigation in GB. When you want to go somewhere you are
supposed to use trunk roads to navigate to the first town/city on the trunk
network _beyond_ where you are going. The signs are coloured to indicate you
are on the trunk network. Then as you approach your actual destination you
will begin to see it signposted on the local non-trunk roads, at which point
you leave the trunk roads.

This has been mostly forgotten in this age of GPS navigation, though, and many
signs are in a poor state of repair or badly occluded by trees or shrubbery.

~~~
70jS8h5L
I'm from the UK and was unaware of this method (trunk road to town/city after
destination).

Is there somewhere I can read about this in more detail?

Thanks!

~~~
ivix
Here is a list of primary destinations.

They are separated by region. So for example if you are in Cambridge (EAST
region) you follow signs for EAST MIDLANDS. Once you are in that region, you
will start seeing signs for the primary destinations in the region.

[https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...](https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/203664/traffic-
signs-manual-chapter-02-primary-route.pdf)

------
VectorLock
I like "SNOWBEGONE KENOBI" and "READY SPREADY GO."

Also the word "gritter" is really funny to me.

------
ejdyksen
In Michigan we have webcams on the front of our snow plows, in addition to
their GPS location. This is useful for seeing road conditions throughout the
state in places that don't have traffic cameras.

Just click the little icon that looks like a snowplow on this site. No plows
out today, however...

[https://michigan.gov/drive/](https://michigan.gov/drive/)

~~~
cheesysam
Surely if you're planning to drive on the road, you'd want the webcam to be
behind the snow plow?

~~~
froindt
Lighting behind a truck is poor (no white lights on the back), and it gives an
idea of how bad the roads are getting between snow plows. This is useful since
plows often run notably slower than normal traffic can safely run for the
conditions.

------
multiplegeorges
Toronto has the same thing for its snowplows, without the great names, sadly.
They're all parked in their lots right now. We've been having unusually warm
weather lately...

[https://www.toronto.ca/services-payments/streets-parking-
tra...](https://www.toronto.ca/services-payments/streets-parking-
transportation/road-maintenance/winter-maintenance/plowto/)

~~~
jvm_
Same just down the road, but they're also service vehicles, so they're out and
about regularly.
[http://hamilton.plowtracker.com/](http://hamilton.plowtracker.com/)

------
AndrewDucker
Am I missing something - how do you see the names? When I click on one of the
vehicles I see "Vehicle Location (PN61DYG)" and the name field is blank.

~~~
squigg
Zoom in until the names appear on the map, you don't have to select each
vehicle - sadly they don't all have names.

~~~
AndrewDucker
Thank you!

------
TaurenHunter
I didn't know what gritters are, but this article makes it more clear and
cites some of the funny names they have.

[https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/gritters-in-scotland-
have...](https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/gritters-in-scotland-have-names-
like-gritty-gritty-bang-bang-and-you-can-track-them-on-a-map-a3741576.html)

------
michelpp
G R I T A L L I C A!

~~~
VMG
David Plowie!

------
kingpiss
I live in a warm place so I am out of touch, but isn't that like a lot of
gritters for how small Scotland is?

~~~
dairylee
The trunk road network is 2179 miles (3506km) long and there's ~120 gritters
deployed.

Doesn't seem like an unreasonable amount to me.

~~~
LeifCarrotson
2179/120 means each one has to cover about 18 miles. Assuming they average 36
mph, assuming each trunk road is 2 lanes in both directions (assuming one pass
per lane and not including time to clean up the shoulder/median), and assuming
they spend 50% of their time gritting/plowing new roads rather than filling
up/changing drivers/driving on plowed roads to get to or from their target
road, that's one pass every four hours. Seems quite reasonable (if a bit
undersized) to me as a Michigander.

We're having unseasonably warm weather here - it's 45 and sunny instead of a
typical 25 and overcast - so all the snow has melted in Southwest Michigan and
our state plow tracking map is basically blank today:

[https://mdotjboss.state.mi.us/MiDrive/map](https://mdotjboss.state.mi.us/MiDrive/map)

We have about 800 snowplows to cover 12,000 miles of state/trunk roads (15
miles per vehicle). It requires about 2,000 operators to keep those 800 plow
trucks running 24x7 when it's really snowing.

~~~
Symbiote
> assuming each trunk road is 2 lanes in both directions

At a rough guess, about half of the roads have 2 lanes in each direction, and
the rest one lane in each direction.

That should improve your estimate.

------
Xophmeister
I first misread this as "Truck road glitter tracker". At first I was
disappointed, but then noticed the names of the gritting trucks and my faith
in humanity was restored :)

------
ejo4041
Does anyone know what underlying technologies they are using? Anything
opensource server or client side? What types of hardware do they use in the
vehicles to send the GPS info?

~~~
jeffrallen
Salt, rocks and lots of diesel.

------
starkd
Took reading the comments to figure out what a gritter is. (Here in the
States.)

~~~
mirimir
Here we'd call them sanders or salters.

It was an even bet for me between that and maintenance of oiled gravel roads.
It's basically a lower cost version of asphalt. Every few years, they sprinkle
some gravel, and spray with heavy oil. The odor is horrible, and vehicles get
dirty.

~~~
geerlingguy
Typically we refer to them as 'plows' or 'snowplows' in the US midwest
regardless of what they're actually doing—they often (but not always) have a
large plow on the front, and a salt/sand spreader on the back, or in some
cases a sprayer that shoots out fine mist that gets your car all grimy and
nasty for the next day or two.

~~~
alistairSH
The mist is called "brine", at least here in DC metro. It's usually applied
before a winter weather event. Once the snow is down, we apply a normal
salt/sand mix.

------
anfractuosity
Neat! I love the names too.

Is it using the cell network out of interest, or..?

~~~
CraigJPerry
Yeah, i believe it’s done via the Vodafone network.

Cell coverage is something like 95% of land and 99.something% of population.

------
birdyrooster
"David Plowie" got me

------
jeffrallen
ICE DESTROYER!

