Saskatchewan’s Highway Hotline has launched a pilot feature called Track My Plow on their website and app.
When the feature is selected, users can click and hover over a plow to see the route of winter road maintenance that it has undertaken.
Saskatchewan Highways Minister Lori Carr explained how it works once users toggle the Track My Plow feature on. "Click on the plow that you're interested in, in the area that you're travelling in, and it will show you a two-hour delay of where that plow has been."
"If you click within that trail, you can see exactly how many minutes it's been since the plow has been at that location," she added.
This feature will apply to over 90 per cent of the 300 snowplows in the province and will give drivers one more tool for planning their winter travel. "The 10 per cent that don't have this on it is because they're older plows, and they haven't been upgraded yet. As we replace those vehicles, they'll have the new technology on it," said Carr.
She said that they've been developing the feature with the vendor during the past year. "It is a pilot project, so as we work our way through it, of course we're looking for feedback if you have any of that for us as you're using the application."
You can find a video on how the desktop feature works here, and how the handheld feature works here.