"It can actually go both ways," Coun. Tanya Vrebosch, Chair of Engineering, Public Works and Environmental Services said in addressing her colleagues on the topic of the City's Automated Vehicle Location (AVL) System, Tuesday. "A lot of people think this is a Big Brother system where we are just going to be watching staff and monitoring them 24/7, but it also goes toward helping protect our staff, as well."
Vrebosch added that the system is key to litigation protection for the City. "If we have an accident, and somebody says that we didn't go and plow a road, we have the ability to go and see when the plow put the salt down. If there's anything to do with speed, we can actually see how fast [a City vehicle] was going. We've already defended complaints of operators not driving properly."
The system keeps detailed, time-stamped records for the purpose of addressing complaints from the public, for legal matters, and for reasons of accountability across the department.
North Bay City Council unanimously approved to award a contract worth $98,072 (plus HST) to BSM Technologies Ltd., for Phase II of the AVL program, Tuesday.
The AVL system is currently installed on transit vehicles and snowplows. The investment will, in the second phase of the program, pay for all City vehicles to be equipped with the technology. BSM also handled the first phase, approved in 2016, that outfitted 46 City vehicles. The remaining 101 vehicles will now have AVL installed with Tuesday's approval of the funding.
The AVL system, in real-time, provides information on locations of the vehicles in the fleet, as well as routes and speeds. Diagnostic alerts are integrated with the system for maintenance purposes. The system can also measure the amount of salt and sand distributed on area roads.
According to the report from staff: "Phase I of the AVL System was a pilot implementation[...]It has proven to be very robust, meeting all operational requirements and expectations. Based on this success, the City is looking to expand the AVL system to include an additional 101 vehicles operated by the departments of Water and Sewer, Parks, Water and Wastewater, By-law Enforcement, and those remaining for Roads."
