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Snowplows

The snowplow API allows querying the real-time and historical locations of snowplows in the Helsinki area.

The snowplow API allows querying the locations of the snowplows in the Helsinki area. Check out the Aurat kartalla application and its source.

  • API location: dev.hel.fi/aura/v1/snowplow/

Documentation

Example query result:

{
"id": "5407",
"last_location": {
"timestamp": "2013-02-19T10:37:33",
"coords": [
24.95477988702919,
60.1847431874767
],
"events": [
"au"
]
}
},

The field last_location is the plow's last recorded location with a timestamp. last_location is updated as new samples are received.

events describes what kind of activity the plow was performing at that location. Values include:

kv
Bicycle and pedestrian lanes
au
Snow removal (auraus)
su
De-icing with salt (suolaus)
hi
Spreading sand (hiekoitus)
nt
Mowing (niitto)
ln
"Lanaus"
hs
Planing (höyläys)
pe
Street washing (kadunpesu)
ps
"Pölynsidonta"
hn
Sand removal (hiekannosto)
hj
Brushing (harjaus)
pn
Coating (pinnoitus, liittyy kesähoitoreitteihin

In order to retrieve detailed information for a single plow, the URL is formed like this:

http://dev.hel.fi/aura/v1/snowplow/<id>

Query parameters

You can provide parameters to filter the query or add more information to the response. Parameters include:

history=<int>

Response will a include a list of <int> points of historical location data for the plow.

since=<time>

Show only plows that have been active since <time>. <time> can be a timestamp or a relative time. When querying details of a single plow, will return historical locations since <time>.

limit=<int>

Return at most <int> plows.

temporal_resolution=<int>

When querying individual plow details, return historical locations that must be at least <int> seconds apart.

Examples

http://dev.hel.fi/aura/v1/snowplow/5407?history=50

The query above will display information about plow 5407 with 50 previous locations included.

http://dev.hel.fi/aura/v1/snowplow/?since=2hours+ago&limit=10

This will return at most 10 plow routes that were active 2 hours ago or more recently.