Schaumburg Receives Smart 50 Award for Snow & Ice Program Innovations

The Village of Schaumburg is pleased to announce it has received a Smart 50 Award from Smart Cities Connect for the village's innovations to enhance operations and communications of its snow and ice program.

Smart 50 Awards, in partnership with Smart Cities Connect, Smart Cities Connect Foundation, and US Ignite, annually recognize global smart cities projects, honoring the most innovative and influential work. Applicants were recognized for cutting-edge projects that demonstrated current and future municipal-scale impact and applications.

The Village of Schaumburg received the recognition for its innovation in creating a custom-developed application to manage village snow removal operations while also providing real-time tracking via a public accessible map called Snow Stat.

The first module of the program went live in 2018 and helped the village accurately manage its fleet of vehicles during snow operations. Since that time, several enhancements have been made. Program additions include GPS tracking in village vehicles to ensure safe driving during operations and an equipment inspection checklist that tracks potential repairs/issues with vehicles in which data is automatically sent to fleet services so issues can be addressed.

An internal snow command map, which is interactive, was created and provides information on vehicles, drivers, route information and general information/statistics about the storm event. In 2019, contracted drivers began using the system so the village could ensure contractual obligations were being met and oversight was provided during operations in which vendors were used.

Also, in 2019, the village's public Snow Stat map was introduced which provides the public with near real-time insight to the location of the snow removal vehicles and general information on the snow event. New functionality was added in 2020, which included activity history and average clearing rate times for selected routes. In 2020, the Snow and Ice Command program was linked to the village's asset management software so that the village can obtain data on its fleet of equipment to assist with scheduled vehicle maintenance, depreciation and estimates for when assets may need to be replaced.

"The creation of these internal and public elements of our snow and ice command program application helps provide the village with critical information to assist with decision-making that is important to improve efficiency of our operations during snow events," said Schaumburg Village President Tom Dailly. "What's really exciting is this program is accessible to the public. Residents and business can go online and see the progress of the snow/ice removal operations."

For a full description of the 2021 Award Project, please visit the Smart Cities website at https://fall.smartcitiesconnect.org/Smart50Awards/.

For more information on the village's Snow and Ice Command program, visit the village's website at www.schaumburg.com/snow-ice.