Information delivery and maintenance system for dynamically generated and updated data pertaining to road maintenance vehicles and other related information

A method comprising:

• receiving information at an information management system from a plurality of information sources, said information sources comprising:
• a snow maintenance vehicle-based system adapted to forward acquired information to the information management system, said acquired information comprising at least one of weather and road conditions in an area surrounding a snow maintenance vehicle;
• a stationary system adapted to forward additional information to the information management system, said additional information comprising at least one of weather and road conditions in an area surrounding a stationary sensor;
• determining one or more of information and instructions to send to the snow-maintenance vehicle-based system;
• receiving at the snow maintenance vehicle-based system the one or more of determined information and instructions;
• and
• displaying, in a snow maintenance vehicle mounted system, display portions corresponding to the one or more of determined information and instructions.

In the system comprising:

• (a) a server adapted to receive over a wireless cellular network, from a plurality of snow maintenance vehicles a plurality of sets of collected information, each of the collected sets of information comprising a snow maintenance vehicle physical location and at least one of weather and road conditions in an area of the respective snow maintenance vehicle;
• (b) said server further adapted to process the received collected information to (i) provide a map associated with a physical location of a selected snow maintenance vehicle and (ii) determine an instruction for an operator of the selected snow maintenance vehicle;
• and (c) said server further adapted to provide, over the wireless cellular network, the map and an operator instruction to the selected snow maintenance vehicle of the plurality of snow maintenance vehicles, wherein the map is visually displayed, by a touch screen monitor, to the operator and wherein the operator instruction to the selected snow maintenance vehicle operator comprises one or more of a dispatch command, an alarm based on a temporal trend in weather conditions, an alarm based on a difference in weather conditions, an alarm based on a temporal trend in road conditions, an alarm based on a difference in road conditions, a snow plow setting, a mixture of materials being applied to a road surface, and an amount of materials being applied to the road surface;
• the improvement comprising:
• using information acquired from at least one of a stationary weather sensor and a bridge surface sensor to refine the instruction for the operator of a selected snow maintenance vehicle.

In the method comprising:

• (a) receiving over a wireless cellular network, from a plurality of snow maintenance vehicles and by a server, a plurality of sets of collected information, each of the collected sets of information comprising a snow maintenance vehicle physical location and at least one of weather and road conditions in an area of the respective snow maintenance vehicle;
• (b) processing, by the server, the received collected information to (i) provide a map associated with a physical location of a selected snow maintenance vehicle and (ii) determine an instruction for an operator of the selected snow maintenance vehicle;
• and (c) providing, over the wireless cellular network, the map and an operator instruction to the selected snow maintenance vehicle of the plurality of snow maintenance vehicles, wherein the map is visually displayed, by a touch screen monitor, to the operator and wherein the operator instruction to the selected snow maintenance vehicle operator comprises one or more of a dispatch command, an alarm based on a temporal trend in weather conditions, an alarm based on a difference in weather conditions, an alarm based on a temporal trend in road conditions, an alarm based on a difference in road conditions, a snow plow setting, a mixture of materials being applied to a road surface, and an amount of materials being applied to the road surface;
• the improvement comprising:
• using information acquired from at least one of a stationary weather sensor and a bridge surface sensor to refine the instruction for the operator of a selected snow maintenance vehicle.