CLEARFIELD – Clearfield Municipal Authority is considering GPS tracking for vehicles.
At Tuesday’s meeting Manager John Williams discussed a contract with Verizon Connect with members of the CMA board.
Williams said the contract would be for one year and would provide equipment for GPS tracking of the CMA vehicles. Williams said in addition to the location of the vehicles, the equipment and software would send alerts or notifications if there are mechanical issues with the vehicles, as well as tracking and logging routine maintenance.
Williams said the software can also be set up to detect driver behaviors, such as aggressive driving or excessive idle time.
Williams said the equipment would cost $21.95 per vehicle, per month. He said this cost reflects the 10 smaller trucks in the authority’s fleet. He said the authority can add the heavy equipment to the package at an additional cost.
Board President Russ Triponey said the software can help protect the employees, as well as lower fuel costs.
“If we’re finding a lot of idle time, we can address it and save on fuel. With fuel at nearly $3 a gallon, that’s a lot of money,” Triponey said.
“I also get calls and complaints that our vehicles are out where they’re not supposed to be. They never give me a name, or a time of day or anything, they just say they see a sliver truck. This way, we can pull up the software and we’ll know exactly where our trucks were.”
Board member Andy Spencer, via conference call, suggested Williams speak to the company about a trial of the software before the authority decides to go with the one-year contract.
Also, at the meeting, Engineer Jim Balliet, of Gwin, Dobson and Foreman, updated the authority on various projects.
Balliet said Harger Utilities has completed about 35 percent of the waterline relocation work on Woodland Road. He said the project will potentially be completed Oct. 12.
Balliet said the Francis J. Palo Inc. has subcontracted the waterline work on Front Street to Dave Roman Excavating, which plans to start the project in early September.
Balliet said the authority has been granted a one-year extension for the Montgomery Dam rehabilitation project to update the 2008 improvement study with information from the recently completed statewide precipitation study. He said estimated costs for the study are about $35,000.
Balliet completed his report by saying the authority received the final permits for the Industrial Park pump station improvement project and the project will soon be put out to bid.