Latest Contributions by NathanFidler

I saw a YouTube video regarding this product and was shocked to see that the company had gone out of business. Something like this would GREATLY benefit us. I am very curious to know if something like this exists. ... View more

Eric, Thank you so much for taking the time to respond to my question in such great detail. I do not have any experience using the Network Analyst Extension, but it does sound like it could possibly do what we are looking for.  I am with the City of Toronto. To add to this, I will specify a few more criteria that we would have to incorporate. "You'd need to define service areas using the Services Area Solver.  The Service Area will allow you to balance the number of streets, major minor etc so that each dirver roughly has equal coverage." We have separate contractors for our road classifications. One contractor would do Arterial and Collector Roads (usually not on the same beat); and we have contractors specifically for Local roads - this is done because each road class gets a specific minimum level of service depending on the winter event - i.e. 5 cm of snow triggers all the arterial and collector routes, but 10 cm triggers the local routes. Furthermore, we have already determined what our routes are based on the truck capacity and spread rates of the vehicles for our arterial and collector routes. These beats generally do not change, as it is uncommon for new major roads to be built or expanded on, as they are essentially the framework of our transportation network. Our contracts last 7 years and it is when they are up for renewal that we can request additional equipment (to shorten the routes, and then redesign the beats). We are currently in year 2 of 7, so we won't be looking at changing this right away.  As for our local beats; we know the number of pieces and types of equipment we have. We also try to design the beats so that pregnant corners, dead ends and cul-de-sacs are serviced by either front end loaders or bi-directional tractors, as they clear the snow much more efficiently. Compounded with this problem is that we try to make beats that are further away from the depot shorter than the ones that are closer to the depot - essentially we are trying to offset the travel time across the district so that the entire operation ends at around the same time. Sidewalk clearing is also another issue for us. We have sidewalk beats where we have identified the sidewalks that are considered "high volume" and "low volume". It is not uncommon for us to start our operation doing only the high volume streets, then switch to the low volume streets mid way through, then back to high volume - again, this trigger is dependent on the snowfall accumulation. Something on the fly that could switch between high and low volume for us would prove to be invaluable. Furthermore, the direction of a road (one-way) does not apply to sidewalk machines, as it may require a pass on both sides of the street, so routing here is not dependent on the actual road itself, it is dependent on the presence of sidewalk. "There may be other factors to consider like closest facility if you have salt barns spread accross the city.  Your driver may be closer to another salt barn and factoring thier vehicle capacity would allow you to take into account a barn that my not be the driver's originating facility but a closer stop to where they are at the time they are expected to be reloading." As I mentioned, for all of our roadway salting operations, the beat lengths are predetermined and are calibrated so that they can hold enough salt for their beat; furthermore, the contractors are not allowed to go to a salt dome that they do not initially operate out of (this is for city audit and accounting purposes). That being said, sidewalk machines can and do run out of salt during their operation and they frequently have to stop and wait for nurse trucks to come and fill them up. We have 1 nurse truck for every 3 sidewalk machines, so I suppose we could theoretically determine at what point along the route we can expect the machine to run out of salt, and have a designated drop off area and route for our nurse trucks to follow. Would this be possible to do as well? Essentially, we are not really looking at changing our existing beats, we are looking at how to properly route our existing beats to maximize our efficiency. Snow plowing is massive undertaking for us and it costs us millions of dollars a year. If we could even optimize 5% of our routes, it would translate into significant cost savings.  The real crux of our problem here is that we rely on paper maps for our contractors to follow. Despite the fact that we have our routes identified for each piece of equipment, we have never been able to physically outline the direction of travel for our operators to follow. We need something that can be put into a GPS that is in the truck with the operator. Even better would be something that could also incorporate the current state of traffic/road closures/ability to skip streets and come back to them later (due to parked cars, police activity, etc). I'm sure you can recognize the benefit that this would have for us, not only for our residents, but also for our department operational costs, potential legal costs (if streets are missed), etc.  Does the technology exist for this type of dynamic system we need? Even if we could get basic routing, with turn by turn directions, and directional lines on our paper maps, this would be a significant improvement. Cheers, Nathan ... View more