People who live and work in North Yorkshire now have an extra tool to help them to plan their journeys in wintry weather with the launch of a new gritter tracker.
The online service from North Yorkshire County Council will enable people to see in real time where gritters are on the authority’s priority routes and where they have been during the preceding ten hours.
The tracker went live today (Friday, 28 January) and can be found at www.northyorks.gov.uk/gritting
County Councillor Don Mackenzie, Executive Member for Access, said:
Already, to help plan their journeys, people can view our priority routes and see up-to-date images from cameras at key locations around the county, as well as following our regular social media gritting updates.
The online gritter tracker is a further tool to help people to make informed journey planning decisions with confidence, particularly during wintry conditions. It gives more detail than ever before, allowing people to see where gritters are and which parts of the network have recently been treated.
This is a bespoke service that has been developed in-house specifically for North Yorkshire. It is no small feat to develop a system to track up to 80 gritters and all the data they generate.
We are confident that from day one it will provide a useful service to people travelling in the county, but we are keen to hear from those who use it about any refinements that could improve it further.
By launching it during this winter, we hope to receive feedback on live situations, which we will be able to review over the summer. Ahead of next winter, we will be able to introduce any enhancements to ensure it provides information that is as full and accurate as possible.
The online trail disappears after ten hours to avoid confusing previous treatments with recent or current ones.
View the gritter tracker at www.northyorks.gov.uk/gritting, where you will also find details of how to give your feedback.
Pictures:
Ready for the road: part of the county’s gritter fleet, which people can now follow in action
On the screen: the tracker shows four gritters heading their separate ways from the Brompton on Swale depot
