Vehicle tracking & Fleet management

Kentwood Public Schools

The Company

Daily safe transportation for 6,100 students Kentwood Public Schools Department of Transportation provides safe daily transportation for 6,100 students via 48 school buses.

The Challenge

Our priority is the safety of Kentwood’s students The transport of ‘precious cargo’ is an awesome responsibility Kentwood’s Department of Transportation takes very seriously. Our priority is the safety of Kentwood’s students. When parents entrust us with that responsibility, we need a way to communicate where their children are, and who they are with during that 10-15-minute bus ride, says Todd Bell, Executive Director of Finance and Operations at Kentwood Public Schools.

hile Kentwood Public Schools knew it operated safely, it had no data to show parents. Transportation of students was not tracked and staff couldn’t easily answer questions about the location of buses and passengers.

The Solution

The answer was to implement Webfleet In the fall of 2018, Bell sat down with managed IT provider Moss to brainstorm a solution. The answer – implement Webfleet, a robust fleet tracking solution to provide the school’s transportation office with precise, near real-time knowledge of bus and passenger locations and fleet safety performance.

The full solution provided to Kentwood Public Schools The full solution provided to Kentwood Public Schools includes:

LINK 530 for GPS-enabled vehicle tracking;
PRO 8275M TRUCK for turn-by-turn route navigation plus built-in camera support;
OptiDrive 360 for driver behavior monitoring;
Input/output cables for bus light integration;
Integration with school district mapping system and student information system (SIS)

Phase one, implemented for the Winter 2019 semester, focused on GPS tracking and driver familiarization with the Webfleet system. A new flat screen monitor installed in the Department of Transportation’s renovated offices allowed staff to visualize the position of buses on a map of the district and quickly and easily respond to parent inquiries.

Phase two, which went live with the start of the 2019 school year, incorporates route navigation and driver behavior notifications.

Integration with the school district’s mapping system pushes routes to drivers via Webfleet. Input/output cables and onboard cameras allow staff to correlate stops with bus light activations and capture video of route locations. This information assures parents that stops (pickups and drop-offs) are performed as scheduled. OptiDrive 360 provides drivers with in-the-moment feedback and predictive driving advice.

OptiDrive 360 provides drivers with in-themoment feedback In just one semester, Webfleet was able to demonstrate Kentwood Department of Transportation operates a safe and responsible fleet. There were no speeding events and no harsh braking incidents recorded. The school board was able to cut $35,000 in fuel costs from its expenses by optimizing bus routes. Says Bell, We spend $380,000 annually in diesel fuel. If we can bring that down we can put those resources into the classroom. He also expects to see additional cost savings in vehicle maintenance and tire wear. When you have 48 buses each with 6 tires and those tires cost $600 each, the savings can add up fast.

Webfleet is so user friendly. The mapping is obvious and the graphics are perfect, says Bell. It’s been a wonderful tool and it has done exactly what we hoped it would do. It provides us with crucial data to communicate with parents about the safety and well-being of their children.

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Tiger Plumbing, Heating, Air Conditioning & Electrical Services

The Company

Managing 28 vehicles and technicians in a 160 square mile service areaTiger Plumbing, Heating, Air Conditioning and Electrical Services provides sales, service and installation to residential customers throughout the Illinois side of the St. Louis metropolitan area. The company, founded in 1993, has technicians and other staff driving 28 vehicles throughout their service area.

The Challenge

Keeping track of techniciansAccording to Todd Kiefer, Tiger Services' General Manager, Before purchasing the Webfleet system, integrated with ServiceTitan, we were just guessing where our guys were at any given time.” Ensuring high levels of customer service was also a concern. “We wanted to give our office staff and the techs a tool that would help respond to customers who said we did not show up, or were late in arriving.
Tiger Services was also committed to improving its dispatching process. We knew we weren’t always sending the closest tech, or that techs were going out of their way to come back to our warehouse when they needed a part, explained Kiefer. Finally, the company wanted to move away from dispatching jobs via calls and texts. This was an inefficient process, as it required the drivers either use a hands free system or pull over and use their mobile phones to get information on their next job.

The Solution

Better communication and visibilityThe integrated Webfleet and ServiceTitan system provides complete visibility into where its vehicles are and what its technicians are doing. Dispatchers are also able to send jobs directly to the device in the vehicle. We’ve moved to a much more efficient workflow throughout the day, said Kiefer. We’re now able to dispatch techs within 10 miles of their last job, cutting way down on travel time and fitting in more jobs. He estimates that techs are able to complete two to three more jobs every day.

The company has also gone from 12 to 28 vehicles, to meet the demands of its growing business. Kiefer also reports improved workflow and better visibility as a result of the auto-arrival feature enabled by the Webfleet-ServiceTitan integration. Now, when a tech arrives within 100 yards of a job, the system automatically notes this – eliminating the need for them to inform dispatch.

This saves the tech time, and helps dispatch keep better track of what’s happening in the field.

The ability to see exactly where each technician is in real-time on ServiceTitan’s map has also improved the parts delivery process. Typically, if a technician found they needed a part during a job, they would call in to Tiger’s warehouse, and come pick it up, or another staff member would deliver it to them. Now, Kiefer can see exactly where the technician is located, and direct them to a parts supply store if that is closer and more efficient.

Because Tiger exclusively services residential customers, maintaining service windows is extremely important. We’ve asked someone to stay home from work, or rearrange their day to wait for our technician, so we really want to stick to the two hour service windows we’ve provided, explains Kiefer. Webfleet and ServiceTitan have reduced errors and incidences of our techs arriving at the wrong address, helping us honor those commitments and keep customer satisfaction high. Having turn-by-turn directions – and the ability to monitor traffic and road closures has also helped drivers meet their customer service windows. Recently, when flooding took out a bridge on a main travel route, dispatchers were able to quickly alert and re-route all affected techs so that they were able to easily get to their next job with minimal delays.

Finally, Webfleet’ OptiDrive 360 system has improved driving habits. Kiefer uses the OptiDrive 360 reports to keep technicians accountable for their driving and goes over any driving incidents – harsh braking or steering, speeding – with techs. They also acknowledge the technicians who are driving well in the weekly team meeting. Each one of our vehicles on the road is a reflection of our company, said Kiefer. So making sure our techs are driving safely is good business. Because Illinois is a hands-free state, it is important to note that with the combined ServiceTitan – Webfleet solution, Tiger Services' technicians have no need to use their mobile devices. Their next job comes in directly to the Webfleet PRO driver terminal. They simply press one button to start the job. They are routed to the right address, and the dispatch team back at the office is notified that they are on their way with an Estimated Time of Arrival.

With Webfleet and ServiceTitan, Tiger Plumbing, Heating, Air Conditioning, & Electrical Services has improved efficiencies and grown the business. I’d recommend Webfleet and ServiceTitan to anyone, said Kiefer. We saw our investments pay off right away. Not only has it lead to more jobs every day – but more revenue overall for our business.

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Death Valley Towing

The Company

Death Valley Towing’s stand-alone business is growing exponentially. The company’s team of seven drivers and five light-duty vehicles offer 24-hour aid to stranded motorists and support property managers, law enforcement, local garages, insurance companies and auto clubs. Today, the business uses some of the best and most progressive equipment and systems in the industry, demands excellence and professional performance from its employees, and prides itself on treating its customers right and with total transparency.

The Challenge

When Lauren and Lee Richardson bought Death Valley Towing four years ago they took on a 33-year-old business with ancient business practices. The tower operated out of a small, humble office in Seneca South Carolina. There was no technology. Drivers took pictures of towed vehicles with a physical camera and were dispatched and managed using clipboards and three-part forms.

It was easy to lose information. Easy for drivers to pull a fast one. Easy for people whose cars were towed to challenge you. We looked at this messy, dark ages business and said, says Lauren.

The Solution

A user of Omadi for three years, Death Valley invested in Webfleet for fleet tracking this year. There’s nothing more disconcerting than looking at the map and seeing your driver in the middle of the lake when he should be on the road, chuckles Lauren. In addition to installing Webfleet, she also agreed to pilot a new integration with HAAS Alert Safety Cloud, which broadcasts a ‘slow down move over’ alert to surrounding vehicles when a tower stops on the side of the road. On-the-job fatality risks in the tow truck industry are nearly 15X greater than other industries with one tower killed every six days according to the AAA.

The decision to use the Webfleet/HAAS integration hit home for Lauren and Lee only a few days later, with the news of the death of a fellow tower. He was killed by a hit and run driver. It got very real. This product can help to ensure this doesn’t happen to anyone else, says Lauren.

The combination of Omadi, Webfleet and HAAS Alert has improved Death Valley’s transparency and service.

With Webfleet I’m able to see my driver pulling up alongside a vehicle on the side of the road. I can see him pulling into the driveway. That’s a different level of service than most people are accustomed to from towing companies, says Lauren.

She’s also able to provide breakthrough service to her property management clients. Using Webfleet I can provide photo evidence documenting a parking infraction. I have data to show we have patrolled the lot. Clients can even log in to see what’s been towed, where the driver is located, and when PTO is engaged.

Webfleet has also improved their policing relationships. Says Lauren, We can tell them precisely where our driver is, and provide an accurate ETA to the scene. It’s cut down on the number of phone calls back and forth.

Finally, Lauren can keep an eye on her drivers while empowering them to be more efficient and safer based on their performance behind the wheel. It’s a small town. Our reputation matters. Webfleet allows me to monitor our drivers’ speed and aggressive driving to enable issues to be immediately addressed. And I can be assured they are out on the roads patrolling and not heading to the lake to fish.

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