Winter Fleets

InterFleet is the #1 GPS/AVL solution for winter fleets in North America. An extensive array of sensor integrations (road temperature sensors, spreader controllers, plow sensors) makes InterFleet productive for your drivers, vehicles, and managers from the very first day of use. Cost savings in winter road materials, such as salt, save millions of dollars for a typical Department of Public Works.

All InterFleet data from our GPS units is tracked and stored for future reference and analysis so that you can review your winter maintenance efficiency and confirm that you, or your contractors, are adhering to winter maintenance standards and policies. InterFleet information can also be used to answer complaints that a street has been missed—allowing you to resolve the complaint quickly if the street has just been plowed. InterFleet data has been used in court to demonstrate adherence to road clearing policies and standards.

Ten-second real-time reporting provides supervisors with the information they need to handle storm events effectively. No matter where they are—the office, home, or vehicle—supervisors can respond immediately to events as they unfold, confident that the information they are looking at in their InterFleet solution is completely accurate and up to date.

Case Study: Materials Management

Problem

Ottawa’s Rideau Canal is the world’s largest, naturally frozen ice rink but in winter that’s the only thing the city wants to see frozen. It takes about 185,000 tonnes of salt a year to keep the city’s streets from turning into skating rinks.

Solution

In an effort to control the amount of salt it was using, the city installed a GPS system on all its salt spreaders. InterFleet reduced salt consumption by about 10 percent and paid for itself in less than a year.

 “This isn’t a fully automated system,” explains Dan O’Keefe, Manager of Road and Traffic Operations. “Our supervisors still make the call on salt application rates based on the beat that the operators are driving and the specific weather conditions and the operators still control the amount of salt that their rigs are spreading. But what this system does give us is real time information and that can be invaluable. We can monitor where our operators are and what they are doing so that if we have to we can make adjustments to the spreaders on the move.”

 “We found that we were able to save costs in a number of different ways,” Dan says. “By increasing our salt pre-wetting rate from 23 percent to 62 percent and using salt more efficiently; we saved about $170,000. Our supervisors were able to refine their call on application rates (using 140 kilograms of salt per kilometer instead of 180, for example) and that saved us $165,000. But the biggest improvement of all was in our operator compliance rate – the amount of salt spread compared to the application rate that was called for. Our compliance rate improved by 15 percent, which accounts for the remaining savings of more than half a million dollars.”