Thruway Snow Plows Look Different This Winter, For Safety's Sake

NEW YORK — When the snow starts falling on the New York State Thruway system, drivers might notice a few improvements, and noticing is kind of the point.

The New York State Thruway Authority has announced a few safety improvements and new equipment in preparation for the upcoming winter season.

"The Thruway’s snow fighters are the best in the business when it comes to preparing for storms and clearing snow," Thruway Authority Executive Director Frank G. Hoare said. "Thanks to our teams of dedicated professionals, the Thruway continues to be recognized year after year as one of the safest and most dependable highways to travel during challenging weather conditions. These new safety improvements will further enhance the protection of our more than 700 plow operators and supervisors, along with the millions of drivers who depend on our system every day."

New for the upcoming snow and ice season, all the Thruway Authority's more than 250 heavy-duty plow trucks will be equipped with green hazard lights. Working in tandem with the standard amber hazard lights, the green lights are intended to improve visibility and safety during winter operations, particularly in low-light conditions and poor weather.

Green lights on plow trucks were first approved in 2022. The lights will only be used for snow and ice removal.

In addition to the green hazard lights, the Thruway Authority will be deploying more than 50 new pieces of snow-fighting equipment statewide, including 19 new heavy-duty plow trucks which are scheduled to be in service by the end of the year, 25 medium-duty snowplows, loaders, skid steers with snowblowers and snow pushers, light-duty pickup trucks with plows and spreaders, new salt spreader bodies, as well as two snowmobiles and a UTV for the New York State Police Troop T.

Overall, the Thruway Authority has more than 400 snow-fighting vehicles and pieces of equipment ready to be deployed for the first snowfall.

During the 2023 - 2024 snow and ice season, Thruway Authority operators cleared more than 1.1 million lane miles, removing roughly 172 inches, or more than 14 feet, of snow.

This will also be the first winter for the new and improved Thruway Statewide Operations Center (TSOC) located inside the Thruway Authority’s Administrative Headquarters in Albany, which opened in August. TSOC is a communications dispatch center that coordinates traffic incident response, is responsible for emergency management, and provides traveler information throughout the entire Thruway. It operates 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, all year long.

As part of the Thruway Authority's ongoing commitment to enhancing safety, it is launching a pilot program in partnership with iCone. The initiative will equip 50 heavy-duty plow trucks with devices that can provide real-time data to popular vehicle navigation applications such as Google Maps and Waze. During snow operations, the device connects with navigation systems to alert drivers about potential upcoming hazards, such as snowplow activities.

The devices will be installed and operational in select plows in each of the Thruway Authority's four Maintenance Divisions where the highest number of plow crashes took place in the last five years.

If successful, the Authority will look into installing iCone devices in all of their plow trucks.

During Winter 2023-2024, there were 16 crashes involving Thruway plows while engaged in snow operations. In the last five years, Thruway plows have been involved in more than 75 crashes.

With this in mind, the agency is reminding drivers that Thruway snowplows travel at about 35 miles per hour, which is often slower than the posted speed limit, in order to ensure that salt being dispersed stays in the driving lanes and does not scatter off the roadways. The safest place for drivers is well behind the snowplows where the roadway is clear and salted.

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