The Pittsburgh Tech Report for January 1, 2019.

The City of Pittsburgh's Snow Plow Tracker is going back online this month after being on hiatus since last winter. The biggest change will be that people can see when a truck has its plow up or down and its salt spreader on or off.

Director of Public Works Mike Gable said the more information residents can have about the plowing the better.

"[Residents have] seen trucks riding back and forth with the plows up on a heavy snow, or not spreading any salt," Gable said. "They don't realize that we're maybe going back to the depot to get filled back up with salt."

Other features will stay the same, including GPS tracking of trucks and the ability to see what work was done at certain times of the day. The new version will also take trucks offline that aren't clearing snow. Gable said including them in the tracker caused confusion in the past.

"Everyone gets excited, [asking] why are there six trucks sitting back in the garage?" Gable said. "So if a truck is inactive for a certain period of time, it's just not going to show up on the snow plow tracker."

Gable said he doesn't know how many people use the tracker, but he thinks residents will be pleased when it goes back online. The city has about 120 public works vehicles equipped with GPS.