How the City of Toronto is Upgrading to More Efficient Fuel Operations
In need of a more secure and accurate way of managing its fuel operations, the City of Toronto is in the process of upgrading its fuel sites used by the City’s vehicles and equipment. This multi-year initiative will replace outdated fuel sites with larger capacity super-sites that are more strategically located and contain additional pumps and fuel types, which will allow the city to accommodate a wider range of vehicles and equipment.
Lloyd Brierley, Director of Fleet Services for the City of Toronto, believes that integrating this state-of-the-art fuel technology with FleetFocus, their fleet management information system, will “take fleet to a different level.”
“When you’re first getting into restructuring vast fleet operations, it’s impossible to know what you’re getting into if you don’t have the in-depth, comprehensive knowledge of everything that each individual region has been doing,” explained Brierley. “With increased knowledge about each area comes increased knowledge about how our entire fleet and fuel operation can improve.”
With the addition of FuelFocus, these fueling sites will become ‘super-sites’ that are equipped with real-time, centralized automated controls that identify vehicle tank volumes, as well as the amount of fuel dispensed. They also provide live readings and thresholds for each tank used to order fuel.
“Using FuelFocus will help us automate many of those previously manual processes. It’s all about doing things efficiently and effectively while eliminating errors.”
In addition to fuel data, diagnostic trouble codes are automatically imported from vehicles during fueling, sending alerts and work requests into the organization’s fleet application which can greatly improve maintenance operations. Statistics such as vehicle identification, fuel type, dispensing limit, date and time, and location are all captured during the fueling process. This turns each fuel-up into an opportunity to gather vital, verified fleet data.
“We can validate the fuel that’s going into every vehicle,” said Brierley. “We can automatically order fuel at each site as volume drops. We can tell what the volumes are at each site.”
Through consolidation and modernization with FuelFocus, the City of Toronto anticipates and overall increase in fleet management efficiency and seamless compliance with environmental standards and regulations. After once managing over 130 fuel sites that held varying capacities of fuel, the City of Toronto also plans to downsize strategically to around 30 fuel sites by 2016 as a result of the super-site upgrades. Each super-site will be able to hold up to or over 75,000 litres of fuel. Replacing these outdated fuel sites and eliminating the need for manual fuel volume measurements and calculations allows the City of Toronto to accomplish more with fewer locations.
“There are a lot of things that the integrated fuel solution can do,” explained Brierley. “Prior to the upgrade, reporting on fuel usage and tank levels involved a lot of human intervention, time, and effort. Doing so manually was an error-prone process that required emails, spreadsheets, charts, and paper forms. Using FuelFocus will help us automate many of those previously manual processes. It’s all about doing things efficiently and effectively while eliminating errors.”
Utilizing these modernized fuel sites, paired with real-time data collection and automated processes through AssetWorks integrated fleet management software and fuel management system, the City of Toronto expects financial savings as well as increased efficiency. This is a true win-win for the City of Toronto and tax paying citizens.
