BOSTON — Snow and ice are nothing new to the City of Boston, but what is changing is the way they're braving the storms.
With a little help from advanced technology, road crews have been able to fine tune their approach to plowing snow and ice to get an upper hand on messy storms.
Road crews are now equipped with highly computerized trucks that tell them in real time how much salt they need to throw on the road as well as the temperature in the air and on the road.
Boston 25 News took a ride in one of these new trucks with Quentin Fuller from the South End all the way to West Roxbury.
Crews start working well before the snow starts to fall, doing what they call a 'pre-treat' where they spray the road with salt.
Recently, the city has also changed the way it dispatches plows once the roads get bad.
Now, it's become a lot easier to monitor the roads in real time as well as the nearly 700 vehicles in their fleet.
Not only do the trucks send back information in real time, but the city can also count on calls from 311 or through peoples' reports on their app that can update road conditions.
By being able to see which roads have been plowed in the last hour, last two hours or longer, the city can then monitor whether crews need to be re-deployed to certain roads.
"A day like today, it's gonna be up and down," said Fuller. "We're not sure how it's gonna go."
Even on a day like today where it's not so much about the snow but rather the icy conditions that can make for a dangerous commute, road crews work tirelessly to make sure roads and clean and safe.