DUBLIN, Ohio — Winter weather can be a challenge for cities to prepare for but more and more are turning to technology to help know when to send out plow trucks to treat and clear the roads.
Dublin is one of several cities implementing its own weather sensors. Dublin purchased three sensors from Vue Robotics at a cost of about $2,300 each. The city intends to purchase a fourth in the near future.
The sensors feed back photos and live weather information, including road temperatures to city offices.
“Mainly what we are looking at is our air temperature and ground temperature,” said Gary Browning, Dublin operations administrator. “It has made management more efficient and supervisors are able to see where the weather patterns are moving and be able to see what road temperatures are.”
Two of the sensors have been placed on the city’s busier bridges. One is on the Avery Road bridge crossing state Route 33. The other is on the Emerald Parkway bridge crossing the Scioto River. The third sensor is placed on the far west end of Dublin, which allows Browning and the city to watch how weather systems approach the area.
“For the camera that’s far west. Our weather patterns enter from that end of the city, so that gives us an opportunity to see what temperatures are doing what ground temperatures are starting to reflect the ground temperature as the events move into the city,” Browning said.
Before the city-owned sensors, it was somewhat of a guessing game on road temperatures. Browning said they would rely on sensors that were sometimes a county over.
“We found this particular information in a platform that's wireless and we could put it within the city and see what's going on here instead of counties away,” he said. “It may be snowing. It feels cold to us, but it doesn’t necessarily mean the snow is going to stick to the ground if the ground is warmer. It gives us a better opportunity to decide what kind of treatment we’re going to place.”
This is the second winter for the sensors and Browning said they are still learning how they can best be used, including during the summer months.
“I think as we learn and this platform develops as well, it’s going to be moving into some AI information where it will be able to do some precipitation detection and accumulation detection. I think as we see more of that come online, we will find more uses for them,” he said.
Other communities, like Delaware, have started to roll out weather sensors to aid in winter road preparations.
As for after the snow, Dublin operates its Snow Go program so residents can monitor plows and road conditions. Hilliard and Columbus also operate similar programs.