Start-spread: the fleet fans out from the yard

The pile-up problem at push-off

The most dangerous moment for coverage is the very start of a storm. Every tractor is sitting in the same yard, and the nearest open properties are the same for all of them. A naive "just take the closest" rule would send the whole fleet in one direction and leave the far side of your service area untouched for the first hour.

How start-spread works

On a tractor's opening move out of the yard, Snowmass adds a fan-out preference: it favors properties that are far from where peers have already headed. As each machine leaves, it effectively stakes out a slice of the perimeter, and the next machine is nudged toward an open slice instead of following the first one.

The result is a fleet that blooms outward from the depot and covers the whole footprint early, rather than a convoy all chasing the same nearby lots.

Why it matters

• Even coverage from minute one — no neglected corner of the map while everyone crowds the near side.
• Faster first pass — the fleet's reach is widest exactly when accumulation is building everywhere at once.
• Fewer stranded far properties — distant customers aren't systematically last.

It only applies at the start

Start-spread is a launch behavior. Once machines are out working, the engine switches to its normal priorities — density cohesion to sweep dense blocks, real road times, and your chosen direction. Fan-out solves the specific problem of everyone leaving the same gate at the same time; after that, cohesion takes over so the fleet doesn't over-spread and start ping-ponging.

Prefer to steer it yourself?

Start-spread is automatic and needs no setup. If instead you want the same equipment to cover the same side of town every storm — "Tractor 01 always takes the north end" — give each vehicle a fixed compass start direction on a dial (Fleet → Start directions), per service plan. Set a heading and that vehicle heads out that way; leave it blank and it falls back to this automatic fan-out. See Give each vehicle a fixed start direction.