Talking Michigan Transportation

Reprise: Why is MDOT naming snowplows? Thank the Scots

• Michigan Department of Transportation • Season 6 • Episode 203

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As lower Michigan braces for the first significant snowfall of the seasons, we’re reprising a Talking Michigan Transportation episode from when the department launched a program to name snow plows. 

This episode features a conversation with Iain McDonald of Transport Scotland, about their program to name the plows, or “gritters” as they call them. 

Later, MDOT’s Nick Schirripa joined the conversation to talk about some of the creative names people submitted for plows here.

Jeff Cranson:

Hello, welcome to the Talking Michigan Transportation Podcast. I'm Jeff Cranson. While we've had some snow in the Upper Peninsula, we're forecasted to get the first significant snow downstate in the next few days, so I thought it was a good time to reprise this episode from 2021, when MDOT first launched an innovative program to encourage the public to give names to snow plows. It's been a lot of fun. We've done some things with schools and other organizations. The kids have really enjoyed naming the plows and getting to see them as they come to the schools, with the drivers talking to them about them, and they get to see how they work and what it's all about. And it helps for tracking the plows on the Mi Drive site, which is a great way to see where plows have been. I hope you enjoy this, and I hope you have a great Thanksgiving weekend. Hi, welcome again to Talking Michigan Transportation. You have a great Thanksgiving weekend. Hi, welcome again to Talking Michigan Transportation.

Jeff Cranson:

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 snow plows. We've been inspired by a program that they launched to let the public name their gritters, which is what our friends in Scotland call snow plows.

Jeff Cranson:

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. So, today, I'm going to talk about this novel means of public engagement, first with Ian McDonald of Transport Scotland and later with Nick Sharippa and Courtney Bates of the MDOT Office of Communications, and I'm talking today with Ian McDonald of Transport Scotland. Ian 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. But, Iain, thanks for taking time to do this. Could you just tell us how this idea to name what you call gritters, how that came to be?

Iain McDonald:

Yeah, thanks, Jeff. The idea came about probably around four years ago when we really increased public awareness after a spell of bad weather and occasionally we could pick up some bad thoughts from the members of the public around the usual question whenever there's bad weather we never see a gritter on the road.

Iain McDonald:

So, we set about a program of publicity on the value of the fleet that we have. 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 it probably will be tonight. And just to get past that question that the public always, always ask where are they, we put up a we decided to progress a critter tracker which actually sits on the Traffic Scotland website. We use that for conveying information on travel to the public across Scotland and 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 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 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. That's really increased the take-up in public interest, especially with schools, with local communities across Scotland, and they've all engaged in doing that, picking up on some very creative and inventive names which you've probably seen.

Jeff Cranson:

Yeah, what's your favorite?

Iain McDonald:

My favourite, probably after the success recently of the Scotland football team, was it's got to be, yes, an ice cream boogie, but we've had quite a few. There's a lot of innovation goes on with the contributors and there's a whole new range. You just have 25 new suggestions coming 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 also suggested Ellen DeGenegris, maybe popular with 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. But going forward, 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 that?

Iain McDonald:

We're approaching the stage where we hope to have a name on them all, and that's now getting to the stage where it's requiring some real thought to get pretty cute and innovative names on these, and a lot of that, as I said, is done in the public maybe a local edge to these things as well. But, yeah, yeah, certainly keeping um his new characters come on board and certain things happen great, uh, uh. An example of that and as as people sort of come and go, there's the opportunity, as there is when we change our operating companies and they bring their own engagement into that fleet. So it's a real, real drive to try and get a name on 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 and they've become quite a local celebrity.

Jeff Cranson:

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 you know how many significant snow events do you see in a year?

Iain McDonald:

It can range from few and far. 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, on our roads around about 200 metres 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 and 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, but it's continued to snow for quite a wee while.

Jeff Cranson:

Are any of your UK neighbours adopting this naming initiative?

Iain McDonald:

They are, indeed. A lot of the local authorities. The councils both in Scotland and in England are picking up on it. One of the portal itself once they've been able to see them on a tracker, that is in itself where you can look at it on the www. trafficscotland. org website and 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 and a lot of the local authorities have seen the real advantages of having that sort of public-facing facility to show that there is a fleet out there and there is a lot of work getting done and 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 it's 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, and 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, yeah, that's the main thing. It's 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 and it helps get the message across and get the engagement and, as I said, especially with the school kids, they're always particularly engaging on that. As I said, especially with the school kids, they're always particularly engaging on that, and the teams, 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 an 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 are probably higher on average than we've been, but certainly 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 the fence is 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, why are you wasting your time doing this?

Iain McDonald:

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

Jeff Cranson:

Yeah, and you can't control what gets said on Twitter? No, you can't. No, 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 www. trafficscotland. org and the gritter tracker portals up there. Go visit and see which of the gritters I like to look at.

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 out information for the trunk road network across Scotland. There is traffic information, incidents and a whole host of information on there, including winter service that we provide the gritter tracker, and it also updates on a nightly basis from 3 o'clock this afternoon. It'll give all the traveling public an insight into all the treatments and they can check the local network, the trunk road 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. It engages people, it's transparency. It gives people some sense of what's going on.

Iain McDonald:

It gives people some sense of what's going on and maybe even the kids see it and you know, think about you know careers and what they could do in terms of maintenance for highway and roads departments. Yeah, let's hope they do and we'll keep a close eye on your output as well.

Jeff Cranson:

Look forward to seeing that. All right, well, thank you. Thanks, Jeff. Welcome back. And, as promised for the second segment, today we're going to be talking with Nick Sharipa, 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, and then we'll also be talking with Courtney Bates, who is a specialist in the central office at MDOT and has been key in helping to spearhead this effort, both in terms of getting the names on my drive and following up on all the names that are being offered, and 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, I mean 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, you know, the whole know before you go concept. How does this help with that?

Courtney Bates:

Sure, getting just the attention brought to the snow plows 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, and so they're checking their routes and they're doing this through our camera views and the snowplow cameras and things like that. They're ultimately making informed decisions about the possible delays in 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, 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. 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 at 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 that kind of that public gateway to what we do. And 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 and 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:

And the vital work they perform every day for Michigan families and our guests. I think that's a really good point because it's easy to go buy these big trucks whether they're MDOT plows or they're a local road agency's plows and it's just a nameless, faceless machine going down the road. And 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, on kind of our pilot with this with Fair Plains Elementary in Benton Harbor. It sounds like the principal teacher and the kids have been very enthusiastic about this.

Nick Schirripa:

Yeah, they really embraced the idea. You know, we pitched the idea right out of the gate and it took them all of about eight nanoseconds to jump all over the idea and 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 and 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, introduce career opportunities to those kids, deliver safety messages and create real relationships with those students, the faculty, the parents and our staff, between our staff and 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, 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 McPlow Face 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 Snow Baka problem. Snow place like home, Snow bacca. But hands down, my favorite so far has been, Snowtorius BIG.

Nick Schirripa:

That's been my my favorite so far because that was yours uh negative I, you know, I came up with a couple, but I'm I'm not good at this stuff. I like salt, Disney, Veruca salt. That one just made me giggle. But we, I, actually we can't use that one just because it's you know, it's a pretty, it's a famous name, but, um, people are really clever. People are really clever uh, way more creative than I am. So it's been, it's been, a lot of fun to see all the creativity. I, you know, 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. And 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 that piece of it. We've had quite a few send some 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 you know there's an education process that goes along with this, of course, but I think, as it stands now, we should be able to, you know, resume this in earnest and probably learn from what we've done so far and have something even better going into 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. I mean 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? You know, Mi Drive and you mentioned that most of its use 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 their stuff before they head out the door. Obviously, we don't encourage people to use their phones while driving, so I just think people are looking at that. I think what they're looking at again and we know from the stats that are coming in from Mi Drive we have over 3 million page views in Mi Drive for 2020. Of those, the largest amount of clicked items on our toolbar are the cameras, the construction and then the plows, and so we know that people are looking for 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 roads are. You know the plows are out working and they're just 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'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.

Courtney Bates:

Is there anything else you

Jeff Cranson:

want to add?

Courtney Bates:

Yeah, I just wanted to say that the day we announced our snowplow initiative on that Sunday January 17th, we actually saw a 50% increase in traffic to my drive that day. So 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 my drive that it's not just plows and cameras but we have constructions and we have incidents and 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, 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. I'd like to thank you once more for tuning in to Talking Michigan Transportation. You can find show notes and more on Apple Podcasts or Buzzsprout. I also want to acknowledge the talented people who help make this a reality each week, starting with Randy Debler, who skillfully edits the audio, Jesse Ball, who proofs the content, Courtney Bates, who posts the podcast to various platforms, and Jacke Salinas, who transcribes the audio to make it accessible to all.