Talking Michigan Transportation

Why is MDOT naming snowplows? Thank the Scots

January 29, 2021 Michigan Department of Transportation Season 3 Episode 45
Talking Michigan Transportation
Why is MDOT naming snowplows? Thank the Scots
Show Notes Transcript

Have you heard the names:

For Your Ice Only?
Gangsta Granny Gritter?
Gritallica?
Gritty Gritty Bang Bang?
Ice Buster? 

These are not the names of films or rock bands. These are monikers for Gritters, which is what our friends in Scotland call snowplows. 

On this week’s Talking Michigan Transportation, recorded Jan. 26, Iain McDonald joins the conversation from Perth, Scotland. McDonald works with ice 24/7/365, at Transport Scotland by day and, when off duty, as a producer of gin at The Perth Distillery Co. 

Transport Scotland’s initiative to name the snow fleet generated worldwide attention, especially on Twitter

McDonald explains that the idea to name the vehicles came from frequent questions about when there would be a snowstorm and people would say, “We never see a gritter on the road.” So, the “Trunk Road Gritter Tracker" was born. Naming the plows makes it easy for people to follow their location and progress and make decisions about what roads are clear and salted before embarking on a journey. 

McDonald talks about how his team prepares for snow events, especially the all-hands-on-deck Beast from the East.  

The popularity of labeling the plows in Scotland inspired others, including the Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT). 

In the second segment, MDOT’s Nick Schirripa and Courtney Bates join the podcast to talk about the launch here. Bates tells us that as of late January members of the public have submitted nearly 12,000 ideas for plow names. As a website administrator working to keep the Mi Drive site up to date, she sees the naming initiative as a way to highlight all the features, including tracking the plows but also viewing real-time information about crashes, road work or other slowdowns, as well as camera images. 

Schirripa tells Fox 2 in Detroit that Plowy McPlowface and Sir Saltsalot were among the top nominations here. He also emphasizes there are not only educational and safety benefits from the project, but this also pays tribute to the people who brave the storms and clear the roads day and night.

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Narrator: It's time for Talking Michigan Transportation, a podcast devoted to the conversations with people at the forefront of the ongoing mobility revolution. In the state that put the world on wheels, here's your host, MDOT Communications Director Jeff Cranson.

Jeff Cranson: Hi, welcome again to Talking Michigan Transportation. Have you heard the names: For Your Ice Only, Gangsta Granny Gritter, Gritallica, Gritty Gritty Bang Bang, or Ice Buster? These aren't films, nor are they rock bands, these are names for gritters, which is what our friends in Scotland call snowplows. We've been inspired by a program that they launched to let the public name their gritters, and MDOT has launched a similar initiative for state-owned plows on the roads. Today, I’m going to talk about this novel means of public engagement. First, with Iain McDonald of Transport Scotland and later with Nick Schirripa and Courtney Bates of the MDOT Office of Communications. I’m talking today with Iain McDonald of Transport Scotland. Iain has agreed to come on and talk to us about their plow naming initiative which inspired MDOT to create a similar program, and I think some other states—I know Minnesota is doing something too. Iain, thanks for taking time to do this. Could you just tell us how this idea to name what you call gritters and how that came to be?

Iain McDonald: Yeah, thanks, Jeff. The idea came about probably around four years ago to really increase public awareness after a spell bad weather. Occasionally, we could pick up some bad sort of thoughts from the members of the public around the usual question that whenever there's bad weather we never see a gritter on the road. So, we set about and a program of publicity on the value of the fleet that we have. I mean, we have 213 gritters in the fleet across all the operating companies that provide our service across the trunk road network. So, there can be 180 of these running about as there probably will be tonight, and just to get past that question that the public always asks, ‘where are they,’ we decided to progress a gritter tracker which actually sits on the traffic Scotland website. We use that for conveying information on travel to the public across Scotland. It sits as a portal on the website, and it allows the public to go in and see live all over the country where each of the trunk road gritters is located and how long it's been out, where it's been treating on the road, if it's salted or if it hasn't salted in the past couple of hours. So, it gives them a real picture of the range of fleet that we have out there.

Jeff Cranson: So, there's a real transparency component to it. You're showing, you know, what you're doing, how money is being spent, but are you surprised at the incredible success and that this became such a Twitter phenomena?

Iain McDonald: It's certainly grown in popularity since we decided to start naming them, and that's really increased the take-up and public interest especially with schools, with local communities across Scotland. They've all engaged in doing that, making up some very creative and inventive names, which you've probably seen.

Jeff Cranson: Yeah, what's your favorite?

Iain McDonald: My favorite probably after the success recently of the Scotland football team has got to be Yes Sir Ice Can Boogie, but we've had quite a few. There's a lot of innovation that goes on with the contributors, and there's a whole new range. We just had 25 new suggestions come in from one community including a whole range of James Bond names. So, once they heard that we were coming on to speak to you guys as well they've all also suggested Ellen DeGenergrits.

Jeff Cranson: [Laughing]

Iain McDonald: May be popular with the American followers.

Jeff Cranson: I think Gangsta Granny Gritter, Gritter Thunberg, Grit Expectations, License to Chill, that's a fun one, going to your previous comments. Let's see, Sandy The Solway Salter, Scotland’s Bravest Gritter, I don't know how you decide who's bravest, Yes Sir Ice Can Boogie. So, ours are still coming in. As of this recording, we are at about 10,000 nominations. There's only some 360 plows in the Michigan MDOT fleet. Several local agencies have their own plows, so maybe they'll adopt it too. Going forward, do you see this—I mean, what are you thinking about the future? Will you give new names each year, or will the same name stick with a gritter for a while? Have you thought about that?

Iain McDonald: We were approaching the stage where we hope to have a name on them all, and it's now getting the stage where it's requiring some real thought to get pretty cute and innovative names on these. A lot of that, as I said, is done in the public and maybe a local edge to these things as well, but yeah, certainly keeping them as new characters come on board and certain things happen. Gritter Thunberg is an example of that, and as people come and go there's opportunity, as there is when we change our offering companies and they bring their own engagement into that fleet, so it's a real drive to try and name every single gritter.

Jeff Cranson: Have the drivers embraced this? Do they see it as something that's fun and interesting?

Iain McDonald: I think they do. I think locally they're all known for the vehicle that they drive. Some of them might be unfortunate depending on what that name is, but I think most of them really like and are quite proud of the names that they have on that particular vehicle. They become quite a local celebrity.

Iain McDonald: I’m guessing some folks might be surprised to know you get much snow in Scotland. Obviously, you have lowlands and highlands and most of that snow is in the highlands, but how many significant snow events do you see in a year?

Iain McDonald: It can range from few and far, but recently we’ve had a spell where we've gone through a period of about three weeks where we've had continued snow as you say that. On our roads around about 200 meters and above that's where we start to see a more concentrated and continued snowfall, but as I look outside the window, at the moment it's snowing here in Perth in Scotland. It's due to be snowing across the country again tonight, and we're keeping our eyes closely on the ongoing cold period that we've got here where it's continued to snow for quite a while.

Jeff Cranson: Are any of your UK neighbors adapting this naming initiative?

Iain McDonald: They are indeed. A lot of the local authorities, the councils in both Scotland and in England, are picking up on it and the portal itself. Once they've been able to see them on a tracker, where you can look on the TrafficScotland.org website, it has put out quite a lot of publicity on that. We've had a lot of inquiries following the build-up of the site and the publicity that that's generated. A lot of the local authorities have seen the real advantages of having that public facing facility to show that there is a fleet out there, and there is a lot of work getting done. It helps to put the message across and let the public see that there are a lot of vehicles out there.

Jeff Cranson: Yeah, absolutely, and that's what we use. Our website is called Mi Drive, Michigan Drive, and we encourage people to look and see where plows have been, like you said, where salt has been put down. Part of knowing before you go is checking out those conditions and knowing what you're going to be facing when you go out there. I think you can't say enough about the safety aspect of this. and if you can also have some fun with it, you know, that's great.

Iain McDonald: Yeah, that's the main thing is using the balance to put into that message and getting across to the public it always helps if you can put a bit of fun into that. It helps get the message across and get the engagement. As I said, especially with the school kids they're always particularly engaging on that, and our Comms teams across the board spend a lot of time working with local communities to get that engagement with schools.

Jeff Cranson: Yeah, we started our initiative by engaging in elementary school in Benton Harbor in the southwest part of Michigan, which is along lake Michigan and a heavy snow belt, so we knew it's a place where, you know, obviously we have a lot of snow to plow most years. This year has been down in terms of snowfall, although the winter's not over yet. How are you? Are you tracking with your annual snowfall, or are you lower than usual?

Iain McDonald: We're probably higher on average than we've been, but we don't get as much as you do. Our last big occurrence would have been what we called the Beast from the East back in 2018. So, we have been in conjunction with the Met office over here. We've been looking at the trend towards another Beast from the East. Thankfully, and maybe thankfully depends on which side of the fence you sit on, we've managed to avoid that up to now, so we're keeping a close eye on that potential for another one of these soon.

Jeff Cranson: Did you get any pushback on this? Was there any criticism at all? Did people say, ‘well, that's just silly, and why are you wasting your time doing this?’

Iain McDonald: I think the popularity always weighs outweighs any silliness, and I think it's more and more and more buy-in as people see the popularity going. I think as long as we just stick to—as you probably do— we stick to the set of rules so that we don't offend anybody with the names, and we apply common sense. It always seems the public appreciate what we're doing with it.

Jeff Cranson: Yeah, and you can't control what gets said on Twitter.

Iain McDonald: No, you can't, no.

Jeff Cranson: Well, that's great. Is there anything else that you want to add about the program, or say about how you think it's going?

Iain McDonald: No, just thanks for the opportunity to put the publicity out there. If anybody's interested, they can see the portal and they can see our fleet moving about on TrafficScotland.org, and the gritter track report portal is up there. If you are visiting, the gritters are likely to come up.

Jeff Cranson: And Traffic Scotland is part of Transport Scotland, right? Is that just your site?

Iain McDonald: Traffic Scotland is the portal which gives them information for the trunk road network across Scotland, and traffic information incidents, and a whole host of information on there, including winter service that we provide, the gritter tracker. It also updates on a nightly basis. It's from three o'clock this afternoon, it'll give all the traveling public an insight into all the treatments, and they can check the local network and the trunk network where they are to check what the proposed salt treatments are on the road in their area.

Jeff Cranson: Well, thanks, Iain, I’m really glad that you guys had such success with this and inspired some folks in our agency and others around the states to do something similar. I think it's nothing but good that engages people, it's transparency, it gives people some sense of what's going on, and maybe even the kids see it and, you know, think about careers and what they could do in terms of maintenance for highway and roads departments.

Iain McDonald: Yeah, let's hope they do, and we'll keep a close eye on your output as well. I look forward to seeing that.

Jeff Cranson: All right, Well, thank you.

Iain McDonald: Thanks, Jeff.

Jeff Cranson: Welcome back, and as promised for the second segment today we're going to be talking with Nick Schirripa who is the media relations specialist for MDOT in our Southwest region, which is centered in Kalamazoo and includes the counties to a little bit of the north and east, but mostly to the southwest of Kalamazoo. Then we'll also be talking with Courtney Bates who is a specialist in the central office in MDOT and has been key in helping to spearhead this effort, both in terms of getting the names on Mi Drive and following up on all the names that are being offered. I think as of now we're well above 10,000. Is that right?

Courtney Bates: Yeah, we're at 10,300 names.

Jeff Cranson: So, what do you think, Courtney, in terms of what this could mean for us? I mean, let's talk about it, it's fun, but let's talk about the benefits first because you have a significant hand in Mi Drive and our efforts to communicate with the public about road incidents, and roads that are clear, and roads that have delays, and the whole ‘know before you go’ concept. How does this help with that?

Courtney Bates: Sure, getting just the attention brought to the snowplows that we have on our Mi Drive site is driving people to our Mi Drive application, which of course, as you stated, you know, we talk about construction, we show our incidents, we show our plows, and probably most importantly our cameras. We know that people are coming out to our Mi Drive site to, like you say, know before you go, so they're checking their routes and they're doing this through our camera views and the snowplow cameras and things like that. So, they're ultimately making informed decisions about the possible delays and road conditions that we have and ultimately saving them time, frustration, and promoting safety when we do that.

Jeff Cranson: So, you both heard Iain McDonald from Transport Scotland talk about why this was important to them in terms of transparency, and people being able to actually see where the plows were, and just by giving them names it makes it easier to track and maybe makes it more interesting. It makes people more likely to want to go on there and see it. Nick, you've been dealing with a lot of media requests for interviews since this was launched more than a week ago. What kind of questions are you getting, and what seems to be most interesting to the reporters you're talking to?

Nick Schirripa: Honestly, I think it starts as kind of the entertainment factor, you know, ‘this is a neat idea. Why would you do this? Where did the idea come from?’ Certainly, a tip of the cap to Iain and the folks Traffic Scotland. It's a great idea. It really does kind of attract the eye. It's a creative way to get the foot in the door, and, like Courtney said, it really does draw people's attention to Mi Drive and to kind of that public gateway to what we do. While naming plows may seem like just kind of a fun way to engage the public in that interface, it really humanizes one of the most important groups of employees in our agency in the jobs they do highlighting the importance of their safety and the vital work they perform every day for Michigan families and our guests.

Jeff Cranson: I think that's a really good point because it's easy to go buy these big trucks, whether they're MDOT plows or their local road agencies plows, and it's just a nameless, faceless machine going down the road. You're right, it's a good thing to remember that that's a real person that's out there taking some risk to make the roads better for us. So, that kind of goes to, you know, our decision to partner out of the gate and kind of our pilot with this with Fair Plains Elementary in Benton Harbor. It sounds like the principal and teacher and the kids have been very enthusiastic about this.

Nick Schirripa: Yeah, they really embraced the idea. We pitched the idea right out of the gate, and it took them all of about eight nanoseconds to jump all over the idea. They pitched three names. It was a fifth grade class, and one of the three names was their school mascot. So, there is an MDOT plow that runs M-63 right up and down in front of Fair Plains East Elementary in Benton Harbor named Tiger. That opens up, I think, more than just the opportunity to humanize that plow and that operator and that whole operation, but it also gives us an opportunity to introduce career opportunities to those kids, deliver safety messages, and create real relationships with those students, the faculty, the parents, and between our staff and in that community. So, I think there's a lot of really valuable benefits that can come out of that relationship.

Jeff Cranson: Well, since you mentioned that name, Tiger, Courtney, and you've been sifting through these thousands of submissions talk about some of your favorites.

Courtney Bates: So, some of my favorites, I particularly thought Kid Rock Salt was pretty creative. We've had a lot of Plowy McPlowface entries, so that seems really popular. Orange Slush, Darth Grater, Frosted Flakes, Orange Thunder, those are just a few that are kind of fun.

Jeff Cranson: Nick, what about you?

Nick Schirripa: Man, Sir Salts-A-Lot, I saw that one a few dozen times. It's Snow Problem, Snow Place Like Home, Snowbacca, but hands down my favorite so far has been Snowtorious B.I.G. That's been my favorite so far.

Jeff Cranson: Because that was yours?

Nick Schirripa: Negative, you know, I came up with a couple, but I’m not good at the stuff. I like Salt Disney, Veruca Salt, that one just made me giggle, but we can't use that one just because, you know, it's a famous name. People are really clever and way more creative than I am, so it's been it's been a lot of fun to see all the creativity. I got exposed to a few hundred of them on Twitter in a matter of a few hours, right? I mean, that's kind of been my exposure to the list. Courtney has been overwhelmed, you know, being 10,300 plus in the master list that we've compiled through the website. I have not seen that list yet. I am scared to death to see that list. I can't even imagine reading through that many names. I’m kind of giddy to be honest, but yeah, I’m kind of excited to see all the creativity that people have foisted upon us.

Courtney Bates: And we've actually had a really good outreach from the elementary schools in that piece of it. We've had quite a few names in, so that'll be fun to go through those as well in all various parts of the state, not just Southwest region.

Jeff Cranson: Well, and we talked about this and I think that, you know, we kind of crept into this, wanted to pilot it and see how it goes, and there's an education process that goes along with this of course, but I think as it stands now, we should be able to resume this in earnest and probably learn from what we've done so far and have something even better going in the next snow season. So, Nick, what do you think about the future, and how your drivers are embracing the idea?

Nick Schirripa: This is really drawing attention to the value of what they do and who they are and showing the entire state, showing everybody, that not only do we internally value them, but we want everybody to appreciate them and appreciate their safety and their worth. That's kind of our goal here, right, overall.

Jeff Cranson: So, Courtney, will you talk about Mi Drive? You mentioned that most of its views are on desktops, you know, laptops and not so much on mobile devices. Why do you think that is?

Courtney Bates: Well, I’m hoping that it's because people are looking at stuff before they head out the door. Obviously, we don't encourage people to use their phones while driving. I just think people are looking at that, and I think what they're looking at, again, and we know from the stats that are coming in from Mi Drive. We have over three million page views on Mi Drive for 2020. Of those, the largest amount of clicked items on our toolbar are the cameras, the construction, and then the plows. So, we know that people are looking to see what those road conditions are before they leave their house. So, hopefully they're making better decisions about maybe not even going out that day if the snow is really bad and the plows are out working and it's snowing hard. So, I think people are looking at that, and I’m hoping, my biggest hope being in safety, is that they they're not using their devices in their car, instead they're looking before they go.

Jeff Cranson: Yeah, I think you're right. Obviously, this whole thing is about safety and if it can be fun, and if it takes a little fun to get people more engaged then all the better. Is there anything else you want to add?

Courtney Bates: Yeah, I just wanted to say that the day we announced our snowplow initiative on that Sunday, January 17, we actually saw a 50% increase in traffic to Mi Drive that day. That's really telling, so that's getting people out there. It's getting them interested, it's getting them to look, and maybe they're going to see when they come out to Mi Drive that it's not just plows and cameras, but we have construction and we have incidents and, you know, those other things that will help make their travel decisions when they head out.

Jeff Cranson: Absolutely, yeah, driving more people to the site so they can find out all the other features that they probably didn't know about. That's a great collateral benefit of this whole thing.

Courtney Bates: Definitely.

Jeff Cranson: All right, well, thanks again both of you, and thanks earlier to Iain McDonald for his part in this. I think this was a good conversation, and we'll be talking about this more as the initiative moves forward. Thanks.

Narrator: That's a wrap for this edition of Talking Michigan Transportation. Check out show notes and more by subscribing on Apple podcast.

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