New York state’s Dept. of Transportation is bringing science to snowdrifts.
The agency last month presented “SnowMan,” software for optimizing snow fences on existing roads and for designing highways to reduce drifts, at a conference of the National Academy of Sciences Transportation Research Board. Stuart Chen, a professor of civil, structural and environmental engineering at the University at Buffalo, the State University of New York, who designed the software with Michael Lamanna, a former graduate student, says it can reduce whiteouts and pavement icing and the “extra costs” of snow plowing and deicing salts.