Four things winter operations need, running on one system.
Winter service does not fit neatly into a standard job scheduler. Category-based response times, material application evidence, and weather-triggered dispatch all break assumptions that reactive-and-PPM tools bake in. TotalCtrl models them properly.
01
Weather-triggered dispatch
Pre-built routes against contracted sites and driver rotas, dispatched when the weather triggers your service commitment. No manual scramble at 2 a.m. when the temperature drops.
02
Proof of service on completion
Every gritting or clearance visit captured in the mobile app: time on site, route completed, material applied, and photos. Timestamped, geotagged, attached to the site and contract automatically.
03
Seasonal capacity planning
Model driver and vehicle capacity against contracted route commitments before the season starts. Coverage gaps surface in September, not the morning of a Category 1 event.
04
Contract-linked reporting
Route completion, material applied and hours worked roll up against the contract so post-season reporting to the client is a report generation, not a reconstruction.
Job management, auto scheduling, weather-triggered dispatch and invoicing, all connected.
TotalCtrl runs the winter service lifecycle end to end. Sites, routes, drivers, weather thresholds and commercial terms all live in one system, so an event does not need a dispatcher awake at 3 a.m. to trigger the response, and the client does not need to phone in to find out whether their route ran.
Job management
One record per site, contract and route.
Every winter contract carries its sites, routes, category, service commitment and rate card in one record. Salt bin sites, walkway clearance, car park gritting, road route gritting: all modelled properly rather than crammed into a generic "job" template. Post-event, the record shows exactly which sites were served, by whom, with what material, against which contract.
Auto scheduling
Routes assigned to drivers before the season starts.
Winter routes are built once against your driver rota and vehicle capacity, then reused every time an event triggers. TotalCtrl assigns the correct driver and vehicle automatically, factors in shift patterns and rest requirements, and shows coverage gaps before the season starts rather than the morning of a Category 1 event.
Weather-triggered job creation
Jobs created automatically when the forecast crosses your threshold.
TotalCtrl watches the forecast feed for every site and creates the appropriate winter jobs the moment the site's trigger condition is met. Air or road surface temperature thresholds, precipitation type and duration, and site-specific rules can all drive the trigger. No dispatcher scanning a forecast at 10 p.m. wondering whether tonight is a run night. Jobs surface on the dispatcher's screen with the driver already assigned.
Mobile capture and proof of service
Route completion evidence, straight from the cab.
Drivers work the route from the mobile app. GPS trace of the route driven, time on each site, material applied, photos where required. Captured as the driver goes, uploaded when the vehicle is back in signal, attached to the site and contract automatically. Ready for a client query, an insurance question, or a post-season audit without a paper chase.
Material and salt usage tracking
What went out, from where, on which route.
Material draw-downs are logged against the depot, the vehicle and the route so tonnage reconciles cleanly against stock and against the client rate card. When a contract pays per-tonne applied, the invoice line has the number already, verified against the mobile capture.
Invoicing
Standing charge, per event, per tonne, all in one invoice run.
Winter contracts are rarely a single line on the invoice. Standing seasonal charges, per-event call-out fees, per-tonne material charges, priority uplifts for out-of-hours or category 1 events: TotalCtrl generates the correct billable lines from the operational data, sends the invoice via Xero, Sage, QuickBooks or Stripe, and reconciles payment status back to the contract automatically.
Post-season reporting
A report the client actually wants to read.
The end-of-season report is a report generation, not a reconstruction. Runs delivered, material applied, response times against category commitment, incidents logged, client-specific concerns closed out. Ready for the contract review meeting rather than pulled together in the days before it.
The team behind TotalCtrl already runs winter for multiple UK operators.
From £8M nationwide gritting operations to local-authority winter contracts embedded within nationwide grounds services businesses, our team designs and delivers the platforms these operators actually run on. If you buy TotalCtrl for winter, this is the depth of operational thinking sitting behind it. The featured reference story below is Nurture Gritting, a division of Nurtures Landscapes Ltd and one of the UK's largest gritting divisions.
3,000+
Visits per night
£8M
Winter operation
Nationwide
UK client base
Bidirectional
SAP integration
“Throughout the process the whole team have been exceptionally proactive and professional in their approach. Whilst our timescales were tight, they ensured that the brief was fully met whilst additional change requests were also incorporated at even shorter notice.”
Nik Tozer, National Gritting Manager, Nurture Gritting
What we built
- ✓Met Office weather file import into the platform
- ✓Sales quoting tool with pricing algorithm and auto quote-to-contract conversion
- ✓Auto-allocation onto the scheduler; regional teams work by exception
- ✓Preferred-engineer concept for consistent site coverage
- ✓Bidirectional SAP finance integration on regional billing templates
- ✓Client Portal with weather watch and direct visit request or cancel
idverde, one of the UK's largest grounds services contractors, running winter operations embedded within local-authority grounds contracts at national scale.
These operators run on bespoke builds delivered by our team. TotalCtrl brings the same operational thinking to a productised platform, ready for winter customers who want the same rigour without the bespoke development cycle.
Winter service, in context.
Local authority winter contractors
Managing gritting routes for local authority contracts with tight SLAs on response times, road categories and material application evidence.
Commercial estates and business parks
Serving multi-tenant estates and business parks with car park, walkway and access-road clearance across a fixed weekly rota and reactive triggers.
Grounds maintenance contractors
Grounds businesses that run winter service in-house as a seasonal service line for existing FM and estates clients, on top of the main grounds contract.
Facilities management contractors
FM contractors delivering winter response as part of a wider hard/soft services contract to commercial or public-sector estates.
Winter service FAQ
Frequently asked questions.
What is winter service field service software?+
It is software that runs the operational side of a UK winter service business — gritting, salting, snow clearance, weather-triggered dispatch — through the same job lifecycle as any other field service operation. TotalCtrl covers scheduling, mobile capture, compliance evidence and invoicing for winter operations from one platform.
How does TotalCtrl handle weather-triggered dispatch?+
Winter routes are pre-built against your contracted sites and driver rota, and dispatched when the weather triggers your service commitment. Every completed route captures proof of service with timestamp, GPS trace and material applied, ready for the client and for any post-event dispute.
Can TotalCtrl capture proof of service for winter contracts?+
Yes. Every gritting or clearance visit is captured in the mobile app: time on site, route completed, material applied, and photos where required. The record is timestamped, geotagged and attached to the site and contract automatically, so evidence is ready without a paper chase.
Does TotalCtrl support seasonal capacity planning for winter?+
Yes. Winter operations typically flex capacity heavily between peak and shoulder months. TotalCtrl models seasonal driver and vehicle capacity against your contracted route commitments, so you can see coverage before the season starts, not after a call-out breaches an SLA.
Can TotalCtrl integrate with existing winter route optimisation tools?+
Yes. TotalCtrl works alongside dedicated winter route optimisation systems where they are already in place, and provides its own route-optimisation and dispatch capability where they are not. Talk to us about what you currently run and we will confirm the integration approach.
Talk winter with someone who runs it.
30-minute demo tailored to your winter service operation. Route model, category logic, coverage assumptions, evidence capture, all live.