Thanks to the expertise of UI faculty, this tough task has become easier. Nixon was also trying to take some of the pressure off snowplow operators. They're out there doing a difficult job, trying to keep the plow on slippery roads in bad weather conditions while they put down the correct amount of chemicals. It's easy for them to become overloaded. We were trying to make it as straightforward as possible for the operator to run the truck, get the job done, and get back home without in any way compromising safety.
Safety is absolutely paramount.
After ten years of research, Nixon came up with guidelines for the optimum amount of pressure and angle of blades and devised a system that allowed the blades to be set automatically at the press of a button. But Nixon is convinced that within five years, it'll be science fact. Global positioning systems and two-way broadband communications are installed in many vehicles, so it's possible for a computer to know where your car is and what hazards are ahead, and then send a warning message to your car. Nixon has identified three stages for getting the right information to the right people at the right time. Data, such as road surface temperature readings, is transformed into the information that it's below freezing point along I-80.