SAN DIEGO—The city of San Diego plans to expand its use of Cingular Wireless L.L.C.’s V-Trac program, which uses Global Positioning System technology combined with the carrier’s wireless data network to monitor city vehicles.
San Diego’s Environmental Services Division first started using V-Trac in 2001 to track the location of its garbage and recycling collection trucks. According to Cingular and the city, San Diego has saved more than $1 million due to a re-routing program that saved about 390 gallons of fuel each day through eliminating about 50 routes per week and decreasing the mileage covered by the trucks by about 900 miles per day. The city also has been able to expand its yard waste collection program to an additional 50,000 households.
The EAD collects waste from about 318,000 households within 343 square miles and provides curbside recycling pick-up for 276,000 customers.
The V-Trac service will be expanded to include San Diego’s Metropolitan Wastewater, General Services and Water departments, and the number of tracking-enabled vehicles will jump from about 250 to about 1,100. The city expects to save about $10 million in the next 10 years, and has also implemented a pilot program in which it hosts the technology for other municipalities and provides the enabling technology free for up to three months.
The savings will be welcome in San Diego, which has been struggling with a $1.4 billion budget deficit and upheaval in its city government.
