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Comment by BuildTheRobots | Hacker News Reader

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"

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> 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/.

Here in Columbus, Ohio, we have a site called the Warrior Watch - 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.

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...

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.

This might be the first time I've seen someone else in Columbus on here!

Bookmarking this for use next year. Thanks.

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

There's so much scope here. I'm surprised that "Grits 'n' Giggles" hasn't been used, for example, and there are plenty of others:

- Grittystar Galactica

- Gritty End of the Stick

- Brad Grit

- Lord of the Flings

I should stop. Possibly I shouldn't have started.

I'm pleased to see they have a 'Mr Plow' in there, for the Simpsons reference!

I think the data is already tracked by many jurisdictions, it's just a matter of exposing it publicly.

For instance, here [1] is the status of state plow trucks in Iowa. They also have a road conditions map that I believe is overlayed on that map as well. Currently there isn't much weather going on though so I think it doesn't show anything.

[1] https://iowadot.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html...

I'm even more amazed, since it seems the damned things only come out about twice a year, at least in the North East!

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