Wednesday, November 19, 2008

GIS guides Boston snow plowing priorities

By Mass High Tech Staff

This winter, the city of Boston plans to implement web-based mapping technology to direct snow plows.

At a location-technology event at City Hall this morning, Boston mayor Thomas Menino announced the city will use geographic information systems technology to display not just streets but buildings, traffic backups, emergency calls and the location of constituent requests received from a 24-hour hotline. That information would be correlated on the same map as data collected from the GPS trackers on each of the 700 snow plows the city uses. Officials would use the combined information to tell plow drivers which streets are in the worst condition and the best way to reach them by avoiding traffic backups and other public safety concerns.

More information will be added to the map over time, the city said. Many departments already use the technology, including the city’s assessing department, parks and recreation department and public safety agencies.

GIS is a computer-based tool for mapping and analyzing objects and events, combining databases with the visualization capabilities offered by maps.

In recent years snow plow operators contracted by the commonwealth of Massachusetts have had global positioning satellite technology installed on their equipment to enable tracking of plows.