GPS Tracking Will Uncover Dishonest Garbage Truck Drivers
Something fishy is going on in the refuse department in Vadodara, India.
An internal investigation by the city’s governing council, the Vadodara Municipal Corporation, (VMC) seems to indicate that the independent contractors hired to do garbage pickup are padding their wallets by weighing down their loads. The fleet management supervisor proposes to install GPS tracking systems on municipal trucks in an effort to solve the problem.
Vadodara is one of the biggest cities in the Indian state of Guyjarat. It has a population estimated at 1.6 million, and a high industrial base, mostly in chemicals and pharmaceuticals. Garbage pickup is a high priority service in such a densely-populated area. Residents and business owners are not pleased when garbage day passes and their receptacles go untouched.
After receiving an increasing volume of complaints over the years, city leaders ordered an explanation from waste management crews. The mystery of the rotting garbage was solved.
The city owns the fleet of garbage trucks and leases them to subcontractors to provide the service. Similar fleet management programs are run successfully by U.S. urban cab companies. The garbage contract in India specifies that payment is made based on the weight of truck loads.
A check at the landfill by the fleet management director revealed that some drivers were passing up the garbage and filling their trucks with denser materials such as construction waste, stone, dirt and rubble. Most people dislike garbage because it smells. These garbage truck drivers didn’t like garbage because it wasn’t heavy enough.
The governing council is now not only demanding efficient door-to-door garbage pickup, they want to restore honesty to the refuse pickup team. The VMC is budgeting next year for a department-wide vehicle tracking system, saying it will bring transparency and accountability to the humble but important profession of garbage man.
The council has not yet decided if it will go with a passive GPS tracking system or a real-time GPS tracking system. A passive unit will record a truck’s every movement using GPS tracking. A real-time GPS tracking system is more expensive, but it is being favored because it will report every truck’s whereabouts live. A fleet management supervisor will be able to monitor all the vehicles’ travels on a computer. The manager will be able to tell whether drivers are following their routes as assigned. Time/date stamps, location reports every few seconds, speed readings and a geo-fencing feature in the tracking system will ensure that drivers are where they say they are.
The fleet management director said he likes that vehicle tracking systems can store an almost unlimited volume of the travel data. When a constituent complains that his garbage was ignored, the fleet management director can call up a travel activity report and ascertain what truck was at the address, if he stopped and how long he stopped.
Some people in the driver’s union, hearing of the crackdown, are threatening to quit, claiming GPS tracking devices are an extreme reaction to an infraction and an invasion of privacy. City leaders responded that the trucks are city-owned and that the drivers are fully informed and educated about the tracking system, so it is a perfectly legal and acceptable action.
While the council earmarks and starts saving funds to cover the cost of a garbage truck tracking system, other safeguards will be instituted now to ensure proper fleet management and to make sure garbage truck drivers are being responsible. Among the precautions will be newly-hired managers assigned to refuse transfer stations. While the loads are being weighed, unloaded and compacted, the managers will do a visual check to see if the garbage is, in fact, garbage.
Source: The Times of India
Tags: drivers, Fleet Management, Garbage Truck, GPS Tracking, Guyjarat, india, management, supervisor
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