Council Finds Fleet Simplification with Argus Tracking
There’s only one thing the Whakatane District Council was looking for in fleet management software - simplification. With Argus Tracking, it’s got that and so much more.
Whakatāne District Council serves Whakatāne, Ōhope, Tāneatua, Edgecumbe, Matatā, Murupara and other communities throughout the Whakatāne District. It provides a wide range of services, including animal control, building and planning, water services, parking, roads and footpaths, environmental health and licensing.
Personal Administrator Donna Sparrow oversees the management of the Council’s fleet of vehicles. She’s part of the Finance and Corporate Services Manager’s team responsible for making sure the organisation makes the best possible use of ratepayers’ funds, while still providing the quality services and facilities the community relies on. Donna explains how Argus Tracking has helped her to transform fleet management from manual spreadsheets to intelligent tracking and management. The reporting capabilities and real-time live tracking provide efficiency and accuracy the Council has never had before – and deliver the information she needs to report to management, regularly or on demand.
Fleet Efficiency with Reporting
One of the biggest benefits of Argus Tracking is its comprehensive reporting capability. Donna uses three reports to monitor various aspects of the fleet – making it easy for her to inform management on driver behaviour and fleet efficiency.
Before the Council invested in fleet management software, she explains, everything was documented in Excel – a very time-consuming process. Now, generating these three reports on Argus is a simple process. T
he first report on overspeed is sent weekly to managers, letting them know which vehicles and drivers have overspeeds. “It’s a good way of reminding staff about safe driving practices,” says Donna. The utilisation report is run at the end of each financial year to see how many kilometres have been travelled in the last 12 months on each vehicle. They’ve just started using the idle report to monitor how long their OBU (On Board Unit) vehicles sit idle at certain jobs.
“The benefit of all three reports is having accurate fleet information available to management,” says Donna.
Spectate: Tracking Pool Vehicles, Health and Safety
Real-time live tracking often comes in handy. With a simple click, Donna is quickly able to find out where vehicles are, especially useful when it comes to the Council’s pool vehicles.
“If someone is late back, we can check to see where they are. Also, for health and safety purposes, if we know someone is heading out to a no-reception area, and they haven’t returned, we can see where they’ve gone.”
Exciting Software Developments to Be Added
After such a good experience with Argus Tracking over the past year, the Council plans to add more features and functions. Argus Tracking has three different plan options – allowing fleet managers flexibility to increase or decrease their service, depending on what they need from the software.
Donna says they’ll be adding the Driver ID function ability. Using iButton technology, drivers can log in using individual tags. This assigns them as the driver to a vehicle, so Donna will know where the driver and vehicle are at any given time providing additional health and safety reporting and understanding.
She adds they also now have two Loci asset-tracking devices, for assets like generators and trailers. “Last year we had a trailer stolen from our depot. If a Loci device had been on it, we would have been able to track it down easily. We hope to order more.”
Donna says that Fuel Watch will also let them better track and monitor fuel efficiency. She would recommend any business that operates a fleet to invest in Argus Tracking. “It streamlines your fleet, information is right there for you to access, you know when maintenance is required in advance so you can organise this, and you know where your vehicles are at any given time. It’s fantastic software.”
