Snowplow online tracker to follow road clearing in real time

One of the frustrations of winter storms is going away, at least for drivers who use roads plowed by the province.

Two new interactive maps will let the public track the progress of snowplows on provincially maintained roads.

"We had a good opportunity to test out the sites internally during last week's storm and now we're ready to test them with the public," Geoff MacLellan, Minister of Transportation and Infrastructure Renewal, said Monday in a news release.

• Click here to see the provincial snowplow tracker
• Click here to see the provincial plowing standards

Much of Nova Scotia is expecting rain and a flash freeze that could make driving conditions very dangerous by Tuesday morning. Both maps will be operational throughout.

The first shows where plows are currently working, using a plow symbol to show vehicles' locations. The vehicles' locations are updated at regular intervals and users must refresh the map on their browsers to see their progress.

Plows only show up on the map if they are moving at least three kilometres an hour.

The other map shows future snow clearing plans, using colours to identify each road's priority.

"For example, a red coloured road is cleared within eight hours after a storm," the Department of Transportation said in its news release.

The project is one of the only like it in the country and it should come as a relief for the provincial staff who man phone lines during a storm, said the director of operations for the transportation department.

"We expect these sites to answer many of those frequently asked questions we get each winter," said Barb Baillie.