The State of Delaware Government Support Services is taking their responsibilities seriously. Would that all states did so. Delaware has selected the Networkfleet Wireless Vehicle Management System for 1800 state vehicles.
Networkcar’s Networkfleet wireless vehicle management system is a pretty slick system. It doesn’t just provide the standard GPS tracking and location services that virtually every GPS provider furnishes. Instead it plugs into the vehicle’s on board data system … the computer diagnostic port (greatly simplifying installation) and provides:
- Vehicle location
- Automated odometer readings
- Diagnostic alerts
- Safety reports
- Integration with existing feet management software
Terry Barton, Jr., fleet administrator for Fleet Services, Government Support Services for the State of Delaware stated. “We have already seen tremendous time savings from not having to manually check odometer readings to perform scheduled maintenance.” You may think this is a small item, but believe me, manually tracking mileage … and resolving errors in mileage reporting consumes a tremendous amount of labor hours. In addition, if fleet management decides to operate on a fee for service basis (as I think they should) and charges individual agencies for their actual vehicle use, automated mileage logging is virtually indispensable, to eliminate the problem of “missing miles” and therefore missing charge-back income.
The notification of vehicle diagnostic alarms is a tremendous value as well. An engine or transmission can costs thousands to repair and notification of the problem at the first indication of a fault often reduces the issue to a simple fluid add and/or minor leak repair.
Delaware is known as the ”First State”. With forward thinking like this, it’s easy to ask why the other 49 can’t get smart too?
More on Delaware’s Fleet here:
Why the quotes around “gets” in the title? Because Nashville is not only buying a transit GPS system, the “get” what the technology is all about … their citizens.
I’ve posted more than once about the propensity for US mass transit operators … especially city-operated bus entities … to appear actively rider-hostile. Most cities operate their transit as a “necessary evil”, leaving the ridership a clear impression that they are “poor folk” who really ought to be driving a car and saving the city all the work and expense of providing bus transit. I’m very glad to see that Nashville Metropolitan Transit Authority (Nashville MTA) is bucking the trend. Props to Nashville, it’s certainly much higher on my list of places to live or start a business after reading this news.
This is the way to do it, in my view. Start with a Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) application, track the busses to keep them on a schedule that meets the needs or riders rather than an inflexible paper schedule that often has the busses bunched up in one area while riders stand in the rain, waiting, and integrate paratransit service with the regular busses.
$7.3 million dollars spread over 24 may sound like an insurmountable hurdle to your operation, but let’s do a little back of the envelope analysis here:
- 199 fixed route buses. Based on my own experience with vehicle and labor operating costs the MTA will save not less than $120 per month per bus. That’s over half a million right there.
- 25 “white fleet” supervisory and support vehicles. At least $100 per month, each, so another $60K or so.
- 12 (est) Paratransit vans … easily $250 a month on these because of the increases in efficiency of the CAD system as well as the AVL(GPS Tracking) benefits. Total here: another three-quarters of a million saved.
According to the way I figure it, in the two-year roll-out period the MTA will save back a million or more. Further savings will accrue as the accounting systems and fare collection software is integrated. I’m confident hat even though this is a top-end, full-service implementation, the city of Nashville’s payback (ROI) will be less than 5 years … even less if the price of fuel goes up (and how much chance of that is there?) … and what an improvement to an already progressive city.
