OTTAWA Co., Mich. -- The Ottawa County Road Commission is now able to track each of its trucks location, speed, and monitor vehicle diagnostics on a single computer screen.
Ryan Kemppainen, operations superintendent, said about 117 salt and plow trucks will be outfitted with the technology from Verizon. He can now track the crews in real-time remotely on a quarter of the fleet. A black box hooked up in the truck can also tell what function the truck is performing (i.e. plowing, sanding, etc.).
"Before GPS, one of the biggest issues we have in the winter is someone will call in and say, 'Hey you haven't plowed my street in two months.' Well, that could be. Maybe we missed it, but more times than not, it's snowing hard enough that you can't tell we've been there," Kemppainen said.
He continued, "So now we'll have the ability to tell the public that, 'No our driver was there two days ago. It's just that we've gotten that much snow in the last two days, you can't tell he was there.'"
Kemppainen said the road commission tested a few systems over the past couple of years before making a final decision.
"Obviously being in the public sector, we want to be cost-effective too. So we found a system that will do all the things we wanted to do and also be on the lower end as far as costs go," Kemppainen explained.
FOX 17 will have more in the 4, 5, and 6 o' clock newscasts.
