City Enhances Snow Fighting Tracking Map

Lincoln, NE (February 8, 2021)  Lincoln Transportation and Utilities (LTU) Director Liz Elliott today announced the City’s map that shows snowplowing progress on Lincoln streets has been enhanced to show locations of all contractor vehicles. Contractor plow crews tested the equipment for the first time during the weekend snowstorm. Visit snowfighting.lincoln.ne.gov to view the map.

“Now that all snow crews are being tracked through GPS, our snow fighting map offers residents a true picture of arterial and residential plowing progress and an easy way for residents to see when snow fighters plowed their street,” Elliott said.

The color-coded map is activated during plowing and material spreading operations only. When those operations end, the map is deactivated. Streets highlighted in green have been plowed in the last 30 minutes, streets highlighted in yellow have been plowed 30 minutes to four hours ago, and streets highlighted in orange have been plowed four to eight hours ago.

The map also now includes color-coded sub-districts that show residents and snow crews the City’s general snow removal progress of each of the 69 sub-districts in Lincoln. Sub-districts highlighted in green are completed, sub-districts highlighted in blue are in progress, and sub-districts highlighted in light yellow have yet to be assigned.

“LTU uses the snow fighting map technology to help our winter operations team manage our resources and track progress efficiently. Our team is already brainstorming additional ways this technology may be able to advance our operations in the future,” said Tim Byrne, Maintenance Operations and Fleet Services Manager.

Byrne said the map upgrades are part of several improvements the City has made to benefit drivers this snow season. LTU has increased its pavement sensors from six to 13 to help detect street conditions and expanded its salt storage capacity by 2,000 tons. Additionally, LTU is testing new residential parking ban rules and assigning crews to begin plowing residential streets at the same time crews begin plowing arterial streets.

County Snow Crews Stay On County Roads