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Trunk Road Gritter Tracker

scotgov.maps.arcgis.com

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Re: Trunk Road Gritter Tracker

#41

Post by kiddico »

nathanm412 wrote: post #7
Denvercoder9 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

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

Bookmarking this for use next year. Thanks.

Re: Trunk Road Gritter Tracker

#42

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

arethuza wrote: post #12
kingpiss wrote: post #8

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?

As I note in another comment - the gritters on that map are a small subset of all the gritters - those are just the ones that appear to be centrally controlled on 'major' routes. We don't get huge amounts of snow (at least not very often) - but what we do get is a combination of snow and high winds - which can make it a nightmare to keep higher roads open.

Which can be much harder to keep clear. Here in Minnesota, USA we get both large amounts of snow and high winds. It's not unusual to have whiteout blizzard conditions and MNDot (Department of Transportation) warning against any travel in some parts of the state..

They can clear a road only to have the wind cover it with snow again an hour later.

I live on top of a hill so I'm well acquainted with what happens when winds gust to 40mph after Mother Nature has dumped 6" of snow on us. Wind-packed snowdrifts suck ass!

Re: Trunk Road Gritter Tracker

#43

Post by globular-toast »

70jS8h5L wrote: post #40
globular-toast wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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/cit…

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!

It used to be documented in the usage section at the beginning of road atlases.

Re: Trunk Road Gritter Tracker

#44

Post by nkrisc »

starkd wrote: post #18

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

In the Midwest (Chicago) I've usually heard them referred to as just "snowplows" or "plows", which also carried salt and spread it behind them as they plowed.

Incidentally, Chicago also has a a real time plow tracker: https://www.chicago.gov/city/en/depts/streets/supp_info/plow...

Re: Trunk Road Gritter Tracker

#45

Post by cheesysam »

ejdyksen wrote: post #35

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/

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

Re: Trunk Road Gritter Tracker

#46

Post by froindt »

cheesysam wrote: post #45
ejdyksen wrote: post #35

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/

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

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.

Re: Trunk Road Gritter Tracker

#47

Post by Symbiote »

squigg wrote: post #24
driverdan wrote: post #20

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.

That is correct - "trunk" as in body, so the main roads are trunk roads. The vans spread rock salt (which we call grit), hence called gritters! We Scots always get confused in the states when offered grits for breakfast .... Sadly it does mean you have to look after your car in winter, as that salt does wonders for chassis rust - you have to keep the car clean!

It's a salt/sand mix, since the sand (grit) provides extra grip.

If it's really cold (I assume this can happen in Scotland) it would just be grit.

(I'm not sure why "gritter" would be difficult to work out. "Grit" is a normal English word: bits of grit in the cabbage, 100 grit sandpaper.)

Re: Trunk Road Gritter Tracker

#48

Post by Symbiote »

LeifCarrotson wrote: post #33
dairylee wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The trunk road network is 2179 miles (3506km) long and there's ~120 gritters deployed. Doesn't seem like an unreasonable amount to me.

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…

> 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.

Re: Trunk Road Gritter Tracker

#49

Post by piinthesky »

Symbiote wrote: post #47
squigg wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is correct - "trunk" as in body, so the main roads are trunk roads. The vans spread rock salt (which we call grit), hence called gritters! We Scots always get confused in the states when offered grits for breakfast .... Sadly it does mean you have to look after your car in winter, as that salt does wonders for chassis rust - you have to keep the car clean!

It's a salt/sand mix, since the sand (grit) provides extra grip. If it's really cold (I assume this can happen in Scotland) it would just be grit. (I'm not sure why "gritter" would be difficult to work out. "Grit" is a normal English word: bits of grit in the cabbage, 100 grit sandpaper.)

Mainly rock salt but doesnt work in extreme cold as the ice freezes with the rock salt in it. Ruins the vehicle chassis in the European country's which salt their roads but it keeps the Car industry going, not to mention pollutes water courses and crops.

Re: Trunk Road Gritter Tracker

#50

Post by jvm_ »

multiplegeorges wrote: post #19

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...

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