Success Story:
City of Worcester, MA
Saves money, increases safety with GPS technology.
Company:
City of Worcester, MA
Industry:
Government
Location:
Worcester, MA
Website:
www.worcesterma.gov
“We have been able to see the real-time and historical location of vehicles to address citizen complaints and easily verify whether or not a sweeper or sander has been down a particular street and when.“
Jim Kempton
Assistant Director of Street Operations City of Worcester
Highlights
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The city can see current and historical locations of vehicles
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Vehicles are monitored to ensure safety and quality of service for
its citizens -
Dispatching and employee accountability
has improved
-
City saves $10,000 per year between time and material
Company
The City of Worcester is in the heart of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, about an hour outside of Boston.
Challenge
Constituent Complaints Regarding Job Verification
During the winter months, with snow on the ground, the city would receive many phone calls from citizens reporting that their streets had not been cleared. At the time, there was no way to check when a street had been sanded, if at all, without sending an inspector to the location.
Solution
Modernizing of an Older Fleet
The Commissioner of the Department of Public Works and Parks of the City of Worcester, Massachusetts wanted to modernize and improve the city’s fleet operations. It was particularly important to do so for the city’s sanders, contracted sanders, street sweepers, and garbage trucks.
Some of the vehicles would need to be tracked year-round and a portion would only need to be tracked seasonally.
The City of Worcester conducted a trial of the GPS Insight fleet tracking solution for one month to make sure that the technology would help resolve their day to day challenges, had accurate data, and was easy to use.
They ultimately decided that GPS Insight would be the system best suited to enhance their overall efficiency.
Results
Job Verification
Since GPS Insight has been installed, the City of Worcester is able to see current and historical locations of the vehicles to verify whether or not a sweeper or sander has been down a particular street. Worcester can also verify if the spreader was turned on while traveling down a street through input monitoring.
Improved Dispatching & Safety
Dispatching has improved due to the GPS tracking software. If any streets are missed or there is an emergency situation, the city can now easily dispatch the nearest vehicle to that street instead of potentially sending a driver way across town.
The city now monitors vehicle speeds to ensure safety and quality of service, and are alerted if the thresholds set are exceeded.
Even when streets are not being serviced and the vehicles are moving faster than 25 mph, the city ensures that their vehicles are adhering to the posted speed limits.
System of Accountability
Having this valuable information at his fingertips, Jim Kempton, Assistant Director of Street Operations, uses this data to keep crews accountable for the quality of their work. Kempton quickly found that some hired contractors were not completing jobs and had been stealing the city’s salt to use on side jobs. Everyone is very much aware that they can no longer steal material or skip areas thinking they won’t get caught.
The city saves over $10,000 a year between time and material that was previously wasted. This is one small piece of the total savings that the city receives on an annual basis from using GPS Insight.