When we launched DataCuse last year, one dataset people seemed particularly interested in was related to snowplows. Each of our snow plows has a GPS unit that allows us internally to see where the snowplow has been and what it was doing while out clearing the roads.
Today, we are excited to release some of the snowplow data as part of the “Plowing Through the Data” hackathon, put on in partnership with the Syracuse University School of Information Studies and AT&T. We did a similar hackathon last year, and look forward to seeing what ideas and projects people come up with.
Mayor Walsh gave some details in the video below:
The City gets a lot of snow, and we are always looking for ways to do work more efficiently and effectively. We believe that part of being a smart city is engaging the public in our data driven work. As teams look at this data, they can come up with creative solutions to a range of challenges.
Specifically, we have released snowplow data from a big snowstorm in March, 2017 and additional data from snowstorms that happened at the very beginning of 2018. People can do whatever they want with the data, but some ideas might include:
An app to see if a street was plowed
A dashboard to track how much work plows have done
More efficient routes for plows to drive.
AT&T has generously supported this event, and the winning projects will receive prizes of up to $3,500.
More information on the event and access to the data is here: https://ischool.syr.edu/landing-pages/civic-hackathon-plowing-through-the-data