Government Technology - December 2008 - (Page DC14)

ADVERTISEMENT Tracking Efﬁciency The town of South Windsor, Conn., improves efﬁciency and optimizes manpower with a mobile GPS solution. T he 25,000 residents of South Windsor, Conn., are enjoying better service from their local government because of technology that tracks town operations like snowplowing and leaf removal. South Windsor is using smartphones to track the locations of public works crews in real time, enabling increased productivity and reduced operational costs. This is made possible by the combined use of BlackBerry smartphones, Freeance applications and existing GIS data. Public Works managers now deploy a BlackBerry with each piece of equipment. The devices let managers track crews during the One BlackBerry smartphone equipped with Freeance Mobile is deployed with each piece of equipment in order to track its GPS location and transmit the coordinates back to the town’s server. The data points are extracted and displayed on a browser-based map that can be viewed by a PC or smartphone using the Freeance Web and Freeance Direct software. “One of the interesting things that GPS and GIS give us in the government sector is the ability to take this information that we’ve traditionally kept in a database, on paper or in Excel spreadsheets — which are all great — but now we’re able to place them on a map,” and this software will help us manage the process more efﬁciently and cost effectively.” Saving Valuable Time and Resources The solution has also saved South Windsor time and manpower. The manager of the leaf pickup program saves about an hour each day using the technology. Before the BlackBerry solution, the manager had to meet with crews at the end of every day to determine what areas were completed and predict what work would be ﬁnished the next day, Roberts said. Now he receives nearly real-time updates during the day and can make informed predictions without talking with each crew. “It gives you predictability for forecasting where you’re going to be in future days and predictability of when you’ve got bad weather coming in and trying to ﬁgure out how many leaves you collected last year versus this year, and so forth,” Gantick said. During the winter season, the GPS technology will be used during shift changes. Supervisors only need to print out a map of the work that’s been completed instead of explaining and listing what work has been completed. This saves time and decreases confusion. South Windsor tracked its lawn mowing equipment during the summer, which allowed the town to tally how many acres per hour were mowed with an eye toward determining more efﬁcient travel routes. “You really get a sense of how long it takes to do certain things for forecasting future costs because we have other ﬁelds and facilities that the town’s going to build, and now we can better quantify and estimate what our future maintenance costs and needs are going to be based on our data collection,” Gantick said. Informed, Happy Citizens The technology also has positively affected citizens who want to know when their leaves “Knowing in real time where our resources are helps us respond more quickly and cost effectively to the changing demands.” — MATTHEW GALLIGAN, TOWN MANAGER, SOUTH WINDSOR, CONN. day and monitor their progress. The technology tracks such tasks as leaf removal, lawn mowing, sidewalk inspections, zoning enforcement and, later this winter, snowplowing. In the fall, the town uses large vacuumlike machines to pick up leaves raked from residents’ yards. The solution allows managers to track the machines’ progress, making the pickup program more efﬁcient. “We can actually track the position of where these leaf machines are,” said Michael Gantick, the town’s director of Public Works. “So we know where they are collecting leaves at any time, and also for historical purposes determine which streets they’ve collected leaves on.” In summer 2008, South Windsor purchased 20 BlackBerry devices. According to Scott Roberts, the town’s IT director, it took about two weeks to get the devices prepped with the software and forms, and connected to the town’s server. Roberts said. “And when we do that, we’re able to see all different kinds of analyses pop out that you wouldn’t see otherwise.” The solution is a cost-effective use of taxpayers’ dollars. Governments of all levels are facing budget deﬁciencies, so by marrying existing technologies with forward-thinking ideas that increase efﬁciency and reduce costs, the town can be a better steward of its citizens’ money. “In South Windsor, we are always looking to improve our services to our citizens,” said Matthew Galligan, South Windsor’s town manager. “Knowing in real time where our resources are helps us respond more quickly and cost effectively to the changing demands. Having GIS and GPS in the ﬁeld is currently assisting the Public Works Department in managing and informing the public with regard to our daily autumn leaf collection process. Time is always a critical factor with the winter season approaching, 14 DIGITAL COMMUNITIES DECEMBER 08

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Government Technology - December 2008

Government Technology - December 2008 Contents Point of View Four Questions for... On the Scene Big Picture Year in Review Who Controls Your Network? Paper Makes a Comeback Halting Meth Abuse Spectrum Up Close signal:noise Digital Communities Contents Becoming a Digital Community Rethinking 700 MHz Smart Grids: Powering the Future Gearing Up for Crime 2.0 Software Predicts Crime Local Portals on the Red Carpet More Than Just a Pretty Face

Government Technology - December 2008

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