Tracking council vehicles pays off

Wanganui District Council PHOTO/FILE

An innovative vehicle tracking system is proving a boon for Wanganui District Council and six other local authorities in the Wanganui-Manawatu region.

Called EROAD, the system was created by a New Zealand-owned company and uses state-of-the-art hardware and the internet to capture information for clients such as road user charges as well as tracking vehicles.

Wanganui council has a fleet of 52 vehicles and the hardware had been installed in 46 of them so far.

The councils got together under a local authorities shared services (LASS) arrangement and as well as Wanganui, they include Horizons Regional Council, and Manawatu, Horowhenua, Rangitikei, Ruapehu and Tararua district councils.

Kevin Ross, Wanganui council's chief executive, said as well as providing better management of its fleet, it improved health and safety for the staff using them.

A key feature of EROAD is its GPS ability, which means vehicles working in remote locations can be constantly monitored.

Mr Ross said it was "early days yet" but he believed the scheme will benefit the council by providing efficiencies.

He said it would also help the local authority determine future business requirements for its vehicle fleet.

Craig Grant, Manawatu-Wanganui LASS executive officer, said that after two months of using EROAD, councils were already seeing vehicle efficiencies in the data being collected.

"We've never had this level of reporting. Not only does the information we're getting tell us how often each vehicle gets used, it also encourages staff to carpool to meetings and provides driver behaviour data if required."

The GPS function was a major appeal of EROAD, he said.

"A number of council staff work in remote locations. If they don't come back at 5pm, we can now see where they are and provide help if they need it."

Last year the technology company was appointed as syndicated supplier to the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) and its programme has been rolled out into 21 New Zealand regional and local councils in the past 12 months, as well as a number of government agencies such as Landcorp.

Each of the seven councils can now see where all the vehicles are in all of the fleets, on one screen.

Mr Grant said it offered "huge benefits" particularly during emergencies.

"We can now capture movements of all seven councils rather than relying on radios to find out where staff are during an emergency event," he said.

He said other councils were watching the EROAD deployment in Manawatu-Wanganui with interest.