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As we mentioned earlier this month, Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced a radical new initiative including GPS tracking devices installed on sanitation trucks to prevent another snow plowing disaster. These plans are continuing throughout the coming months.

According to news agency NY1, after a multi-agency review met to discover what exactly went wrong, Bloomberg said the concern stemmed from a lack of information between city workers and city officials. The Mayor added that after snowfall left the city at a grinding halt, time was unnecessarily wasted while officials didn’t know how many trucks were out on the roads and what neighborhoods they were digging out.

Residents throughout the city were upset at the slow response time in removing the snow, leaving many areas throughout the five boroughs at an angered standstill and wondering why there weren’t any workers on the job.

Bloomberg believes that installing GPS tracking devices on 50 sanitation trucks in Brooklyn will help keep the city aware of the whereabouts and progress of the cleanup crew in real time during future snowfalls. This will be key in making sure plows don’t cover similar areas while neglecting others.

The lack of communication between the sanitation trucks and the city resulted in days of cars being buried on side streets, preventing many commuting New Yorkers from being able to get to their jobs.

Bloomberg added that while the GPS tracking devices will be part of an initial pilot program, he anticipates  that it will have positive enough results to add more devices to the 1,700 plow trucks in the city’s fleet. The plans, which were made earlier in the month, are continuing to move forward (hopefully in time for the next blizzard!).

Article Written by Greg Minton