BISMARCK, N.D. (KFYR) – Snow is on the best way later this week, however fortunately for us, there are many on-line sources to assist us journey safely or hold observe of family and friends who could also be touring.

Brandon Beise of the North Dakota Department of Transportation says ND residents have a brand new technique to keep secure and journey good this winter season. Motorists can now get real-time highway pictures, freeway closures and snowplow monitoring.

“It’s cool because you can see where the trucks are, so if you know there’s a truck in your area you can expect to see it coming down your state highway in the near future, or maybe it has just gone past your mailbox,” stated Brandon Beise, upkeep operation part supervisor at Bismarck NDDOT.

Although the NDDOT says these sources are useful in protecting vacationers secure, surprisingly not everybody is aware of about or makes use of these on-line capabilities.

“I didn’t, but it sure would be handy. You know, my husband travels a lot for work, and I’m always kind of worried about the roads and hoping he’s paying attention to things. Maybe with two of us paying attention, it will be a little better,” stated a Bismarck resident.

Currently, about 150 snowplows have the monitoring know-how, however Beise says that ideally, all 350 plows in North Dakota could have this characteristic sooner or later. Being capable of observe the place the plows have been is beneficial in driving throughout the state and even inside one metropolis safely.

“We definitely see spikes before, during, and after storms, major storms like this that are in the forecast. And then any time that we have any major highway closures like that too, the public really wants to know what the road conditions are,” stated Beise.

The NDDOT is all the time working at bettering current know-how, in addition to introducing new and improved options. The roadside cameras supply new photos each 5-10 minutes, permitting vacationers to see highway situations, and new monitoring know-how is presently being piloted on 10 Bismarck snowplows.

“Now that I know I definitely would, you know, and I’m hoping it’s easy to use, user-friendly, because I’m not always real great with computer stuff, but yeah, that would be great,” stated a Bismarck resident.

For those that haven’t used the journey map and its sources earlier than, NDDOT has made it easy to navigate. The public can discover it on travel.dot.nd.gov, or an app may be downloaded onto a smartphone, so journey updates are on the palm of your hand.

New and improved monitoring know-how is estimated to be out there for public use by the top of this 12 months for Bismarck snowplows.

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