Both Cobb County and the City of Fayetteville have rolled out telematics to the majority of their police fleet. Curtis said over the next 18-24 months the County’s Risk Management department plans on making telematics a County-wide integration.
Last year, the City of Fayetteville outfitted all of its Patrol and SRO fleet vehicles with telematics to increase preventive maintenance (PM) compliance and improve scheduling repairs and maintenance using cloud-based reporting.
“Telematics was the large push for FY24,” Fleet Operations Superintendent Ross Jackson, CAFM, said. “This will allow both fleet and PD to go in and, based off vehicle mileage and last PMs performed daily, weekly and monthly, keep a better flow of vehicles coming into the shop to both keep vehicles on the road and not overwhelm the technicians. This also helps keep our in-house upfitting and vehicle builds progressing.”
Telematics Aids Preventive Maintenance
Thanks to telematics, in FY24 94% of police department vehicles were repaired within 24-48 hours. The fleet also saw monthly availability rise to 95.97%.
“The platform makes it very easy to schedule repairs, view check engine light codes and prioritize repairs and in some cases of known codes, order parts ahead of time,” Jackson said.
Along with telematics, Fayetteville also started the use of gamification of the technicians, which also improved PM-related outcomes, including PM compliance (up 26%) across the whole fleet, technician productivity (up 11%), and technician efficiency (up 5%).
From telematics to in-car video systems, the options available to fleets are ever-growing.
“Gamification was another fun experiment and accomplishment,” Jackson said.
Fayetteville is also using Whelen telematics to customize lighting, siren, and spotlight programs. Instead of requiring officers to bring their units into the shop, Jackson can push out updates over the air to deliver the same programs and controls to all vehicles remotely.
In-Car Video Systems Empower Officers with Critical Information
In-car video systems can help officers gain visibility into an unfolding scene, record video footage inside and outside of the vehicle, and give officers critical information to do their jobs safely and effectively.
When the City of Kalamazoo sought to replace aging video equipment, Christopher Franks, Captain for the Kalamazoo Department of Public Safety, selected the AXON in-car video system, which also comes with Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR).
“We are always looking for new technology to stay on the leading edge of public safety. The system is controlled through our mobile data computer and has the ability to capture plates while driving down the street,” Franks explained. “The outcomes we anticipate include creating a more efficient officer by tying all of our systems together and hopefully being able to give that time back to the officer to do more crime reduction and community engagement.”
