These days, spending money on fleets and public works requires proof of its utility and efficiency. Taxpayers need critical services such as snow removal, road maintenance, sanitation, or utilities, but they do not want to pay for inefficiencies or poor service. By utilizing GPS fleet tracking, local governments can improve their transparency and provide evidence that they are effective stewards of their jurisdictions.
With this guide, local government officials can see the ways that integrating GPS tracking software into fleet management can improve the efficiency of public works, without compromising quality.
Better Route Planning
Even for a small city, route planning is key for local government fleets. Snow removal trucks need to follow the most effective path to their designated routes, balancing time spent getting to the destination with safe transport and fuel efficiency.
GPS tracking helps to achieve all these goals by creating efficient, adaptive routes that accommodate the needs of the service as well as incidental factors like traffic. These systems know the immediate location of any vehicle, so they can recommend efficient routes or reroute when conditions change, without putting the driver or other motorists at risk.
Faster Dispatching
Local governments may keep multiple fleets that they utilize depending on the service, which complicates the requirements for effective dispatching. A human receiving information about a necessary maintenance or repair task, such as a broken sprinkler at a local park, must evaluate the entire fleet and choose a vehicle and crew to attend to it.
With a GPS tracking system, this effort is streamlined. The system identifies the nearest vehicle based on distance and travel time, determines if the crew is available to attend to the task, and sends them information right away. The role of the dispatcher shifts more to oversight than task-by-task direction.
Improved Fuel Management
Fuel efficiency is a key goal of many local governments, requiring attention to the fuel management system in place. With fleet management software solutions, government departments receive up-to-the-minute visibility of each vehicle and driver in the fleet. Systems collect data about driver behaviors that may affect fuel efficiency, as well as the distance traveled on the current tank.
Government services can use this information to create training to target efficient improvements in driver behavior, as well as schedule maintenance for optimal fuel efficiency over the vehicle’s life.
Greater Asset Utilization
When budgets are cut (or limited to begin with), local government departments have to do more with less. This highlights the importance of maximizing efficiency and utilization of every vehicle on the fleet. When a fleet tracking system manages the fleet effectively, every vehicle receives proactive maintenance on an optimal schedule.
Drivers are less likely to spend time waiting for instruction, because they receive guidance about their next task as soon as the previous one is complete. Governments can provide the same level of service with smaller crews and fewer vehicles.
Efficient Response Times
For vital government services, response time is critical. A flood or backflowing sewer line can cause serious risk to nearby residents and businesses, requiring a prompt response. GPS fleet tracking helps minimize the time that workers need to discover the problem, dispatch crews to inspect it, and arrange for effective repairs.
The software helps everyone spring into action with fewer bottlenecks, because they do not have to wait for someone to respond to the emergency before they can take the next steps. This arrangement increases efficiency but also helps ensure that big problems receive faster attention.
Stronger Transparency
As the idiom goes, the proof is in the pudding. Taxpayers often expect to be able to see into the inner workings of the government that they elect and support with their taxes. They want transparency that usually comes from data collection and processing. GPS fleet tracking provides all this information.
Local governments can use the tracking software to assemble data and generate insights into necessary changes, such as a new maintenance regimen or custom training for fleet drivers. These changes may fill critical aspects of compliance as well, since government enforcement often requires that departments demonstrate how they adhere to local regulations.
Visibility is something that taxpayers expect of their governments, but this demand also reveals opportunities to help these services run more effectively. By considering options for GPS fleet tracking and other systems to monitor critical local government services, officials can take steps toward greater efficiency and efficacy.
The author, Robert Hall, Jr., leads Track Your Truck, Inc. as Vice President of Sales and Marketing.