Javier joined the Rastrac team back in August 2005 and currently is a Project Consultant working with partners to provide GPS tracking and fleet management solutions in order to improve efficiency.
Javier back again with another Rastrac Tech Minute.
Today I want to speak about snow…I know, I know, it’s August, but that’s really my point. The Northern half of the United States is going to get snow this winter and some places will get snow soon. All indicators point to a lot of snow. So, if you get snow and you haven’t prepared by September, you’ll be left out in the cold. Ha!
Rastrac provides a snow removal monitoring program that not only tracks your snowplows, but color codes the streets that have been completed on a web viewable map. This map can be kept private for your use only, or it can be made public, so the community can see where streets have been cleared. Then; when a certain amount of time goes by, it will remind you of where you can expect more accumulation and automatically send a snowplow back to that area for another run. And, it will continue monitoring and reminding you when routes need re-plowing for the duration of the snowstorm.
This one-of-a-kind program is called StreetComplete and was developed for use in snowstorms for one of the largest cities in the US; it has been in use there for six years and is utilized on over two thousand vehicles. And, as Rastrac has made many improvements to the program, it is now used on salt and sand spreaders, trash trucks and street sweepers too. So you see StreetComplete is a year round tool for municipalities, counties and states.
Police departments are especially fond of StreetComplete because it allows them to view patrol routes that are already cleared and cleared routes to use when dispatched for an emergency. One of our county customers uses StreetComplete for its own snowplows and also requires independent contractors to use it too. This way they are assured contractors are where they’re supposed to be and plowing the streets correctly through a plow-up/plow-down recognition capability. Getting their money’s worth, so to speak.
StreetComplete is a tool that will change the way you manage snow removal by helping you guide driver behavior and community safety while also improving the fleet’s efficiency. When used to it’s fullest advantage, StreetComplete will help you cut your fleet costs, make your drivers and contractors more accountable, improve the work product you receive and, make everyone on the roads safer.
The underlying platform that StreetComplete was built on is a comprehensive fleet management system that monitors location, speed, idle time, maintenance intervals, harsh braking, rapid acceleration, etc,. So, you are able to know, without a doubt, how your fleet vehicles are doing at any give moment with alerts and notifications and long term with a variety of reports available to you.
If you anticipate snow this winter and you wish to improve your ability to view your snowplows in action AND analyze their effectiveness, call us at Rastrac and we will help you achieve your goals.
