Montreal's GPS-tracked snow clearing and Info-Neige alerts
Montreal began fitting snowblowers and haul trucks with GPS in December 2014 under SIT-NEIGE, a CAD 7.7 million telemetry system that logs loading, transport and dumping — including the volumes each contractor delivers to the snow disposal sites. A second system, Planif-Neige, publishes street-by-street loading status through an open API that fed INFO-Neige MTL, an app built by an outside developer and later the city's own 311 Montréal app, which warns drivers 60 minutes before a parking ban. The status is typed in by borough crews rather than read off the GPS traces, and both the city and the app state that the orange street signs, not the feed, decide who is towed. Montreal ended the developer's contract in December 2025 and moved the alerts in-house.
CBC News, analysing city data, counted close to 3,000 vehicles towed outside the hours INFO-Neige had indicated between 2015 and 2018; the city did not dispute the figure and acknowledged flaws in the app.
🎓 Lesson
Publishing an operation's status does not transfer its authority. Montreal's own disclaimer keeps the legal trigger on the physical sign, so when the feed is wrong the resident pays the tow — instrumenting the work and instrumenting the enforcement are two different projects.
Evidence📰 Media
Scale🏙️ City-wide
Cost≈CAD 7.7M over two years for the SIT-NEIGE telemetry (2014)
FundingCity of Montreal operating and capital budget
Sources
↗ Ville de Montréal — press release announcing SIT-NEIGE and Info Neige MTL (4 Dec 2014)'le déneigement intelligent comptera sur le déploiement du système de gestion SIT-NEIGE, qui permettra d'optimiser les opérations de déneigement (chargement, transport et élimination de la neige)' and 'la Ville investira 7,7 M$ sur deux ans' — the system covers loading, hauling and disposal; CAD 7.7M over two years. Also 'suivre le volume de neige acheminé à chacun des sites par les transporteurs' (track the snow volume each transporter delivers to each site), the sentence that carries the contractor claim. Rollout began in 9 boroughs in winter 2014-15, all boroughs planned for 2015-16.
↗ Ville de Montréal — open data: Déneigement des rues en arrondissements (Planif-Neige API)Publishes 'données sur la planification du chargement de la neige suite à une tempête' from the Planif-Neige system, as XML endpoints (Production and Simulation). Access is not fully open: developers must 'transmettre un courriel à [email protected]' for a token. Update frequency listed as 'Irrégulier'. Carries the decisive disclaimer: 'La signalisation en vigueur dans les rues pour le stationnement en période de chargement de la neige prévaut toujours sur les données transmises par l'API' — street signage always prevails over the API data.
↗ Ville de Montréal — open data licenceNames Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International; reuse including commercial is permitted with attribution, and reusers may not restrict access to the original data.
↗ Journal Métro — 'Déneigement intelligent: la Ville souhaite s'améliorer' (first season review)Carries both the fleet figure and the automation gap. City official: 'La saisie des informations n'est pas automatisée et c'était un premier chargement, ce qui a fait en sorte qu'on a eu des données qui n'étaient pas à jour' — data entry is not automated, so the information was out of date; foremen updated the database four times a day. Reports '115 souffleuses et 900 camions de déneigement' fitted with GPS in about ten boroughs, five boroughs live in the app, roughly 37,000 downloads, and the city's claim 'À 95%, ça a bien été'.
↗ INFO-Neige MTL — help page (Les Logiciels Héritage)'Les données sur le chargement de la neige proviennent directement du système de gestion centralisé Planif-Neige de la Ville de Montréal et sont fournies par les arrondissements.' Still warns of the lag: 'il y a un délai entre le passage de la souffleuse et le moment où les données sont entrées dans le système par les équipes de déneigement' — a delay between the blower passing and crews entering the data. Liability is disclaimed outright: 'En aucun cas une contravention ou un remorquage ne pourraient être contestés sur la base des informations données sur notre site' — no ticket or tow can be contested on the basis of the app's data.
↗ CBC News — 'Montreal cars are being towed by the thousands each winter, even when drivers follow the rules' (2018)Carrying sentence: 'since 2015, close to 3,000 vehicles have been towed outside the hours that Info-Neige indicated snow-clearing was set to take place', described by CBC as a conservative estimate because the tow data is incomplete; the City of Montreal does not dispute the figures and recognises the app has flaws. Causes given: crews not posting the orange signs in time, or the app not showing the operation. The page and its French twin (ici.radio-canada.ca/nouvelle/1093533) both return 403 to automated fetching; the headline, the figure and the city's non-denial were confirmed through two independent searches. The French version's lede reads 'des milliers de véhicules remorqués ... cet hiver', so treat 3,000 as the cumulative 2015-2018 reading.
↗ Ville de Montréal — 311 Montréal mobile appThe in-house replacement: 'Suivez en temps réel les opérations de déneigement, recevez des notifications pour déplacer votre voiture', with a map of sectors already cleared or under way, and 'Une notification vous sera également envoyée 60 minutes avant une opération de chargement de la neige' — a 60-minute warning before a loading operation. Page last updated 16 December 2025.
↗ Noovo Info — 'L'application Info-Neige n'est plus gratuite' (9 Jan 2026)After losing the city contract the independent app started charging '4,99 $ pour six mois'; it is 'gérée par une petite équipe indépendante de Montréal'. City statement: 'Cette décision vise à simplifier l'expérience des citoyens en intégrant l'état du déneigement et la carte du déneigement en temps réel dans l'application 311 Montréal.'
↗ Union des municipalités du Québec — 'Montréal: le déneigement intelligent' (Mérite Ovation municipale 2016)The city's own award submission describing the three parts: Planif-Neige for borough planning, INFO-Neige MTL for residents ('105 000 téléchargements à ce jour'), and 'SIT-Neige ... un système et des équipements télémétriques utilisés pour gérer les transactions liées aux opérations de chargement et d'élimination de la neige'. Its claim that GPS positions feed the public map directly is operator framing and is contradicted by the 2015 and 2018 reporting; not used in the snippet.
📎 Cite this project
1001 Smart Cities (2026). “Montreal's GPS-tracked snow clearing and Info-Neige alerts” — Montreal, Canada. The Smart City Atlas. https://1001smartcities.org/projects/montreal-info-neige/ (last verified 2026-07-26). Data: CC BY 4.0.
The underlying data is free to reuse with attribution — see the open data page.
