MOOSE JAW — Gasoline is expensive and protecting the environment is important, so the fact that some city crews leave their vehicles running for hours at a work site concerns one city councillor.
During city council’s June 23 regular meeting, Coun. Jamey Logan asked city administration what the policy was with idling vehicles when no one was in them. He noted that he sees many empty city-owned trucks running when he drives around the community and wonders why, especially for economic and environmental reasons.
Bevan Harlton, director of operations, started his response by apologizing and saying he owed a response to the city’s accessible community advisory committee and the public works, infrastructure and environment advisory committee since they had also asked about similar driving-related issues.
“If you recall, when we did the traffic bylaw amendments last year, we did have a member of that committee say, ‘Hey, I want you guys to think about your idling and consider language in the traffic policy,’” Harlton said.
Operationally, the department is working in-house to monitor the fleet with an operations analyst since managers are seeing that “return times” on vehicles are “a lot higher” than what the odometer shows for kilometres driven, he continued.
This data, which the department recently acquired, shows that crews are leaving vehicles idling when they shouldn’t be, while the information allows managers to question staff about why they’re leaving those machines running, Harlton said.
The operations director noted that one reason vehicles could be idling is that crews are using trucks to power portable signs or beacons, when some other energy source could be used. That is just some “low-hanging fruit” that managers are reviewing.
Harlton said he issued an email a month ago to employees in the operations and community services departments identifying this problem and urging managers to “clamp down” on it. He added that he should also be referring staff to the traffic bylaw to draw a “hard line” about idling vehicles.
Logan said he appreciated Harlton’s response and thought acquiring fleet management software could help the department address this issue, since it could compare vehicles' hours of service to the number of kilometres staff drive them.
The next regular council meeting is Monday, July 14.
Editor's note: This article has been updated to clarify Coun. Jamey Logan's final comment at the end of the story.
