Patent ID: 8284037

Claim:
A method, comprising: (a) receiving over a wireless 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, said processing comprising at least one of the steps of: (i) providing a map associated with a physical location of a selected snow maintenance vehicle; (ii) determining an instruction for the selected snow maintenance vehicle and/or route; and (iii) refining a weather forecast by comparing the weather forecast with actual weather conditions in the area of the respective snow maintenance vehicle and changing the weather forecast to reflect the actual weather conditions in the area of the respective snow maintenance vehicle: (c) providing, over the wireless network, at least one of the map, the instruction, and the weather forecast to a user, wherein the map is visually displayed to the user and wherein the instruction 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 to be applied to a road surface, and an amount of materials to be applied to the road surface,