You’re on the road. The snow is blinding. You hit snow which has drifted across the road. You brace yourself to get through and wonder, “Where are the snowplows?”
Now you can figure that out before you ever hit the drift. The Ministry of Transportation has launched a new service called Track My Plow. Before heading out or on the side of the road, drivers can go to 511 on line and find out exactly where the plows have been and when.
Chris Basala, the regional director of MTO in the Sarnia area, says 37 of MTO’s plows from Windsor to Sarnia will be tracked with their GPS units and shown on interactive maps which also include images from roadside cameras and weather forecasts.
“511 has become the one stop shop for weather tweets, weather cameras with real time images of the highway and now Track My Plow,” says Basala.
“We often get inquires about the plows,” says Basala. “They’ll say ‘I’m on 402 traveling for the last hour and I haven’t seen plow.’ This allows people to say, ‘yes, the plows are out there.’”
And Basala hopes this will give people the tools to make “educated decisions on when to hit the road” before they head out of the door.
It’s a shame very few roads are the responsibility of the MTO. We need this on Lambton County plows to make it worthwhile…