It’s 30 below and windy. A City of Edmonton employee needs to fuel their City vehicle and the last thing they want to do is enter their mileage or engine hours and then remember their PIN number before the fuel flows.
Relief is coming!
During 2015, the Fleet Services branch will progressively convert eight of the City’s 12 fueling stations over to an automated Fuel Control Terminal system that will only require drivers to insert the fuel hose, swipe a terminal with their employee identification card – no more PIN code – then fuel and go!
During the first phase of its automated fuel management system implementation, Fleet Services is in the process of installing 1,800 computer modules in City vehicles which will communicate wirelessly with the new fuel terminals.
The result is that a wide variety of information about a vehicle will be recorded at the fueling station without any work on the driver’s part. The system will record mileage, engine hours, fuel economy and a variety of diagnostic codes, and send the information directly to Fleet Services.
In the past, the requirement for drivers to manually enter mileage or engine time information resulted in some human errors, which compromised the integrity of the data that Fleet Services needs to efficiently service the City’s fleet.
“We will now have more accurate data entry,” says fueling supervisor Norman Li, “which enables us to better predict schedule preventive maintenance.”
The fuel control terminal software is tied into Fleet Services’ powerful M5 vehicle and equipment maintenance program.
With M5 constantly informed of current data on vehicle odometer readings or engine hours (some vehicles are required to idle for long periods while not moving), fleet supervisors and maintenance shops will be more able to more efficiently schedule preventive maintenance inspections.
“Before, people sometimes had to manually go out and find a vehicle to get its readings. Now, that kind of unproductive time won’t be required,” says Norman.
Accurate records of fuel consumption and mileage will also enable Fleet Services to spot vehicles with higher-than-average consumption, which may indicate a mechanical problem that needs attention.
