OLATHE, Kan. — To stay ahead of the continuing winter, the City of Olathe is using a geographical information system (GIS) to track road conditions.
The GIS shows where trucks have been on their routes, what’s been treated and what hasn’t yet.
It’s a tool residents can also use to check conditions in their neighborhoods.
That data helps system managers in a number of different ways.
“We can track different areas and when we remove snow from certain areas,” GIS Manager Matt Steging said. “We can also show where our trucks have been along certain streets."
Steging said the data allows them to know how many miles the length of the street is so they can aggregate the amount of miles they’ve cleared.
“We can take those GIS zones that we've cleared from and connect to our computerized management system and know how many labor hours have been used, how much equipment has been used, how much material, how much salt brine has been used,” he said.
The data also allows the city to help with future budgeting.
“It helps with logistics on getting the streets cleared,” Steging said. “It also helps with prioritizing budget for the following year, so you can get an idea of how many dollars we need to be budgeting for how many miles of street we have based on how many estimating events we have.”
Here’s a look at maps and snow information for cities across the metro:
- Belton
- Bonner Springs
- Independence
- KCMO
- Lawrence
- Leavenworth
- Leawood
- Lee’s Summit
- Liberty
- Merriam
- North KC
- Olathe
- Overland Park
- Shawnee
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