Big Brother will be riding along in more city vehicles

CEDAR RAPIDS - Big Brother is set to take a place in the front seat with city street and snowplowing crews.

B.B. already is there with the city's garbage and recycling workers and bus drivers.

“It's one more tool to allow us to continue to improve our service to our residents and to show our accountability,” explains Craig Hanson, the city's public works maintenance manager.

The tool is something called AVL - an automatic vehicle location system. The system allows the city to remotely track where its vehicles are during the workday and how they are operating.

Hanson said the monitoring equipment also will allow the Public Works Department to pinpoint which streets, for instance, have had salt or sand put on them in winter and how much of the material has been spread where. It's not uncommon for citizens to report damage caused by city equipment, and the monitoring equipment also will help the city know just where its vehicles were and weren't and when, Hanson said.

Similar equipment has been in place since November 2008 with the city's fleet of garbage and recycling trucks, and Hanson said city buses also use tracking equipment.

The city now will purchase 22 more AVL units along with mapping software for $32,629 for the city's streets operation.

Hanson said the new equipment, in fact, does let the city track its employees and equipment, but he said it is equipment being put in place in jurisdictions across the nation.

“It is a wave that has been going throughout public services,” he said. “And we are public servants and we have to prove the quality of our service.”