News & Events

From WNYT NewsChannel 13 - WNYT.com
Karen Tararache
December 02, 2019 11:26 PM

SCHENECTADY - "The side streets in Schenectady are the very last to get plowed, and it's very inconvenient for people who live out here and people have to work around here to get around," Shelia Callaway said.

For Callaway and her co-workers, digging out has become part of the norm for winters in Schenectady.

Across the street from her, Brierwood Boulevard looked packed with snow, so much so, that Charles Marty pitched in to help.

"I mean the guy comes and does a good job when he does it but he's got probably priority somewhere else," Marty said.

He's not wrong. On the City of Schenectady website there's a list of priority streets that get plowed in the case of a snow emergency. 

"At this point, we're showing up to three hours of a trail really," Antonio Civitella said.

At Transfinder, CEO Antonio Civitella explains how 21 of the city's plow & spreaders are equipped with GPS trackers that feed back their location in real time, every ten seconds.

"What we do with GPS, really it's our secret sauce, is that we take our software and analyze it and really display it in a logical way," Civitella said.

Residents are able to access the information for free right on the city's website.

By clicking on what's referred to as a "breadcrumb" or a ping rate, you're able to also see the current speed limit of the vehicle and the last hour that plow was in front of your home.

"Really the nice thing about it is you get a lot more transparency, you see what's going on in the City of Schenectady and it's great for residents," Civitella said.

Transfinder is welcome to any suggestions you might have to make the service better, you can email them at support@transfinder.com and for anyone with questions during the snowfall emergency in Schenectady, call (518) 382-5279.