So you think you can plow?
10 ways to elevate your city's snow plow game
Snow storms are perhaps the most visible measures of how well your city is managed. A rapid response to an emergency situation like this demonstrates how serious your leadership is about running your city. The best city leaders approach every snow storm as if it were a mini natural disaster, with reopening city streets to deliver basic services as the primary and only concern. But how do you know if you are “good” at handling snow? Read on to learn how snow removal operations work and for 10 key ways to elevate your snow game.
What are snow plows and how do they work?
A plow is simply a large metal blade attached to the front of heavy trucks to push snow and ice out of the lanes of travel on a street. Plows are operated by a hydraulic or electric controllers inside the cab that can move the plow with directional buttons on a joystick or by moving levers. Most plows are a single solid blade but some come in “split blade” varieties, where sections of the blade can move independently of each other (these are useful in smaller areas or when there isn’t a good place to move all of the snow all at once; the blade can turn into a V shape to push snow in both directions and get narrower to fit into tighter spaces between cars parked on both sides of a single lane street for example). The back of the plow has a large container full of salt called a salt spreader. “Pre-treating” roads before snow storms with this salt is a key to success (described in more detail in a later section).
Typically plows use the blade to push snow out of the travel lane where the plow truck is driving. A standard approach is to plow “primary” streets in the more dense areas first. The more residential neighborhood streets and “secondary” streets are serviced later (keep reading for more on how to optimize route planning). Plows commonly only clear a single path or travel lane in each direction down the middle of the street. This single pass approach is not good enough:
Excellent snow responses plow all streets “curb to curb”: instead of clearing a single path down the center of a street, plows will make multiple passes to make sure snow is pushed all the way to the curbs, revealing the most amount of pavement possible.
Any snow left on the street or along a travel lane has a high chance of melting and refreezing in those travel lanes or being pushed back into a travel lane by passing vehicles as they drive over the mounds of snow. Curb to curb snow operations naturally take more time from having to make more “passes” down a single block or area of street, but it is not possible to have clear and safe roads without doing this (small neighborhood roads included).
Plows most commonly operate independently of each other and will individually cover a unique set of streets or areas, but sometimes on wider areas like highways or airport runways, plows can coordinate to clear an area in a single pass with a group of plows at the same time. “Tandem plowing” or forming a “conga line” is an approach where plows drive in a staggered and slightly overlapping formation with plow blades angled in the same direction, pushing snow from one side of the area across several travel lanes all at once. When done correctly, it is the perfect execution curb to curb plowing with only a single pass of multiple staggered plows. Alternatively, if a single plow cleared only the middle lane on a highway, that snow would just be pushed into another travel lane, creating a potentially even more dangerous condition in that other lane.
Where do you put the snow that was plowed?
Snow should be pushed off to the side of the street as much as possible. Streets with parked cars present challenges and often those cars get stuck from the piles of snow. Streets with sidewalks or bike lanes along the curb also present challenges with that snow piling up where people need to walk or bike. Cities with a lot of street parking should try to offer free parking in city owned garages during storms to get cars off the street and to make room for snow piles. Either way, it will be a fight to have snow off the street but also off crosswalks, sidewalks, and bike lanes. Sometimes it just takes people with shovels having to shovel out the sidewalks after. In places that get significant amounts of snow, crews will either have to haul the snow away literally by scooping it into big dump trucks and bringing it somewhere else. Historically cities would dump or push these large piles of snow into nearby waterways, but this is no longer permitted because of the salt and other pollutants that can be in the snow and contaminate waterways. Some cities utilize snow melters that heat up piles of snow, turn it to water, and pour it into a nearby storm drain.
How to maintain a sufficient fleet of plows
A standard approach to building a fleet of snow plows is to buy single purpose trucks that are only used for snow removal. This is obviously expensive and hard to maintain these vehicles if they rarely get used.
Excellent snow responses utilize multipurpose vehicles for snow removal, quickly converting regular service daily drivers with other primary uses into snow plows.
For example, parks maintenance crews likely have a fleet of pickup trucks for landscaping, tree trimming, and other parks related functions; these pickup trucks can easily be retrofitted with a plow blade and salt spreader at a fraction of the cost of buying an entirely new truck but with snow removal as a single purpose. For cities that only have snow events two or three times a year, this is even more crucial to minimizing costs and maximizing response. Nearly any truck in a city fleet can become a plow: New York City famously attaches plow blades to the front of garbage trucks. Future fleet purchases should keep this in mind when purchasing new vehicles for everyday use.
Another pro tip: vehicle maintenance needs to start immediately after the end of snow season. Salt is highly corrosive (more on this below) and plows will rust quickly if not properly maintained. Also, plowing is very hard on vehicles. Maintenance teams will need a lot of time to remove rust, deep clean all trucks to remove salt and other debris, and to order replacement parts and equipment that might be needed. Delivery times will be long for specialized items and by the time the next storm begins it will be too late to replace your plow blade or salt spreader.
Who drives a snow plow?
During a snow storm it is safe to assume your city is releasing communications about the storm that probably sound like “stay off the roads unless you truly need to be out there”. This is great advice: every vehicle on the roads during a storm is one more vehicle that can potentially crash, requiring a much more dangerous emergency response, or at the very least interrupt snow removal operations. The same should be true for city employees and city vehicles. And this is great news! Anyone not able to perform regular work duties because of the storm is now able to join the snow removal team at least in some capacity. For example, if trash collection is suspended because of dangerous roads (and it should be unless you want trash trucks stuck and blocking your ambulances and snow plows), those trash truck drivers can now drive snow plows.
Excellent snow responses have cross trained employees that can quickly shift from regular duties to snow storm operations.
Described another way, the best way to expand your fleet of drivers without hiring more staff is to use the staff you already have who are now on the sidelines because of the weather. Building inspectors, trash collectors, health department officials, animal control officers, and anyone else that otherwise has a driving focused role in your city should suspend operations and switch to snow removal.
Salt and “pre-treating” roads
Plowing snow on a street is effective but is still only a reaction to snow after it has started to accumulate and cause dangerous conditions. If you start your storm response after your roads have turned white you have already lost the battle.
Excellent snow responses “pre-treat” roads in advance of storms with salt.
Salt is important because it melts snow and ice by lowering the freezing point of water and ice. The first snowflakes to fall on a salt treated road will melt, turn to water, and ultimately drain into your sewers. Salt can melt 1-2 inches of snow if applied correctly which greatly lessens pressure on the plowing side of the operation and keeps streets passable particularly during the early phase of snow and ice storms. More importantly, pre-treating roads makes snow exponentially easier to plow: treated roads have a wet layer of slush below the snow; untreated roads will have ice and hard packed snow. Alternatively, when vehicles drive on untreated roads with snow cover, the snow will compact tightly onto the street creating very slippery icy conditions, often exactly where the tires hit the road, the best indicator that your streets have not been properly pre-treated. This packed snow and ice is also much harder to scrape up with plows.
Salt not only needs to be applied before a storm but also once plowing operations have completed. Any water or wetness on the street has a high probability of refreezing once the temperature gets below freezing again. Salt before, salt after.
The most common type of salt used for this is calcium chloride. It is readily available, cheap, and works fairly well. The two big issues are 1) it is corrosive and rapidly accelerates rusting of metal items that come into contact with it; and 2) it doesn’t work well once temperatures get below 20 degrees (the point where you need it the most).
The secret weapon of excellent snow responses is magnesium chloride salt.
Magnesium chloride is typically blue in color but more importantly it is less corrosive and harmful to the environment and it works at temperatures well into the single digits. The only downside is it is expensive and harder to find. Mix it with calcium chloride to make it last longer. Some snow removal operations have experimented with other salt alternatives, such as sea water (if it is nearby of course) or beet juice. The cost is typically the limiting factor with alternative materials but anything that lowers the melting point of ice should do the trick!
Salt is applied to streets using two methods: salt spreaders for “rock salt” (solid form) and sprayers for brine solution (liquid form). Spreaders are the most common device used to apply salt. These machines consist of a large container in the back of a snow plow (either inside the pickup truck bed or as a replacement for the entire rear section of the truck) with a rotating wheel at the back of the container to “throw” the salt across the street. A controller in the cab of the vehicle allows the plow operator to increase the spin speed of the wheel to make the salt travel farther; another mechanism pushes more salt into the wheel faster to “throw” a higher volume per minute. Brine on the other hand is a mixture of salt and water that is applied using trucks with big tanks and sprayers. This is a more labor intensive process to create the brine solution, but it sticks to streets better and coats the street better (think about a few chunks of salt on a smooth surface with space between the chunks compared to a liquid that can cover that surface evenly).
Salt is stored in large open areas called silos or salt domes that are shielded from weather (rain or snow would wash the salt away) often in piles of up to tens of thousands of tons of salt (enough for an entire winter season and then some). A tractor picks up salt from a large pile and dumps it into the top of the spreader.
How do you know if there is enough salt on your roads? You should be able to see it: Roads should have a sparkly white dust on them or in cases of brine application, white or wet streaks where brine has been sprayed. If you can’t see it, you need more.
Plow tracking and monitoring technology
Excellent snow responses utilize real time plow tracking software so that managers can ensure drivers are progressing through routes efficiently and that all streets are being serviced.
This technology tracks GPS locations of plows and can capture vehicle movements to show which streets have been covered by a plow. More complex systems can detect if plow blades are down, if plows have made enough passes (some streets need more than one pass to be fully cleared), and how long it has been since a plow has visited that street. This information should be shared with the public to maintain transparency and accountability but is a fantastic internal tool to better understand the effectiveness of your resources and if you have enough in every neighborhood.
When should plows be operating and for how long?
A reasonable goal for every storm is to be able to pre-treat all roads within 24 hours before a storm and to have all streets fully clear and passable within 12-24 hours after snowfall ends. Obviously it will take longer to clear 12” of snow from your streets compared to 1”, but aim to right size your operation to be able to hit this goal for a storm slightly larger than an average storm for your city. Assume that plows must drive down every mile of every street in town, that they can only travel 7-10 miles per hour, and they might need to make multiple passes on wider streets (particularly for curb to curb removal). Pre-treating can use less people and has less of a rush if you plan it correctly: if you know a storm is coming in 3-4 days, start slow a few days in advance to allow your city to continue to provide regular basic services and to avoid shutting down operations to focus on snow. Snow plowing must be fast and requires the full roster.
Excellent snow responses begin at least 24 hours before the first snowflakes fall and will run 24 hours a day until every single street is clear of snow and ice.
Once a storm ends, people in your city will inevitably try to get back on the roads immediately. The goal should be to keep plows on snow removal routes as close to 24 hours a day as possible- minus time for driver shift changes, driver breaks, refueling, maintenance, and salt refills. Salt storage and refilling areas need to be positioned across town to minimize distance plows have to travel to get more salt and get back to routes. Driver shifts should either be 8 or 12 hours if possible to minimize overlap, but shift changes take time (as much as an hour from when a plow leaves a route to when it returns to that route after a shift change) so the less shifts in a 24 hour period the better. Extra pay for snow responses will help entice drivers, either overtime, hazard pay, shift differential pay (extra pay for doing work outside of regular hours), or snow response bonuses.
Sufficient staffing is more than just having one driver for each plow. Keep in mind reserve drivers in case someone is unable to report/sick/etc. (never have any open trucks!), maintenance and repair crews, supervisors, and shift managers.
How are routes planned?
Plows are deployed to specific areas or “routes” to ensure every street is covered and that plows are not duplicating efforts on the same streets. Route design is often based on natural boundaries of neighborhoods but routes should also be small enough so that a single truck can fully service an entire route during a single shift. If a route is too big, a plow might not get to some streets during a shift and the next driver will be left with more than a full route to cover, snowballing (pun intended) into a bigger and bigger problem. Pre-treating will be faster since it only requires a single pass as the spreader can be adjusted to throw snow over a wider area but plow blades have a set width, and plowing will take longer if streets are wide and require multiple passes to clear snow curb to curb.
Excellent snow responses aim to service every street at the same time; no area or neighborhood gets to go first and no neighborhood is left behind.
How streets are divided into routes doesn’t matter so much as having enough drivers to service all routes in a timely manner and that all streets are included in the route plan. No streets or parts of town should be considered in a “later” phase of the operation: it doesn’t matter if downtown main roads are clear if nobody can get to them. And medical emergencies don’t limit themselves to main roads only during snow storms. But if you ever find yourself with extra plows or plows that finish routes faster than others, those resources should of course go to high traffic corridors, hospitals, schools, transit hubs, firehouses, police stations, and senior housing facilities.
Sidewalks and bike lanes
Don’t forget about people that need to get around in ways other than in a car, of which there are many.
Excellent snow responses include bike lanes, public sidewalks, and crosswalks as a part of the standard snow response.
Smaller vehicles such as bobcats and mini-plows fit better in these small spaces, but human power might be the best option in certain areas. Arguably more attention needs to be paid to bike lanes and sidewalks since pedestrians and bikes have a higher chance of injury in snow and ice conditions.
Communications
Arguably the most important part of the operation is keeping the public informed, not only to ensure people know when roads are safe to use again but also to give updates on status and progress. Knowing your snow team is working hard on the issue will make people more at ease with the wait. But also make sure you have ways for people to share information back to you about any issues they might see such as streets that have been missed or that have not been properly cleared. Your communications team should send our regular alerts throughout the duration of the operation (before, during, and after the storm and until streets are clear). Send alerts through social media, any emergency alert systems, text messages, emails, press releases, and press conferences, and allow for “two way communications”.
Excellent snow responses provide constant public updates on progress of the storm and storm cleanup and also allow for real time two-way feedback from the general public.
When someone reaches out, no matter the channel, respond quickly and work aggressively to address their concerns. There is no better opportunity to demonstrate your city’s responsiveness.
Happy plowing!
