Administering more than 700,000 visitors daily and over 13,000 businesses operating within its boundaries, Melbourne City Council aims to achieve best operational practices across the industry sectors with a main focus laid on sustainable and efficient development.

Included in the council’s sustainable initiatives is the operation of a fleet of vehicles that are utilised by the council’s employees for short-term travel. The council came to a decision that the previous manual logging of the movement and location of the entire fleet of vehicles was both time-consuming and inefficient. In partnership with Gamma Solutions, specialists in data capture hardware/software and implementations involving a range of wireless infrastructure, the council sought options for the implementation of a fully automated system to replace the old manual process.

“The City of Melbourne has been using RFID technology for nearly 12 months to automate data collection for vehicle usage from its corporate car park,” said Cr Brian Shanahan, chair of the Finance and Governance Committee at the City of Melbourne. “The RFID system provides accurate data collection of each vehicle departing and entering the car park, enabling council to do away with manual records for asset management keeping.”

Melbourne City Council has worked previously in conjunction with Gamma Solutions using Intermec portable printers supplied by the company for their ticket inspectors. With the ongoing relationship, the council’s decision to work with the company for the automation of the logging system came rather naturally.

“To date the manual system of logging vehicles is both unreliable and fairly inconsistent. By implementing the RFID solution, Melbourne City Council hoped to increase its efficiency and data integrity within the Corporate Transport Office,” said Clem Valdez, technical services at Gamma Solutions.

The initial testing and pilot phase has been in progress since June 2007. The second stage of the project, which involves the integrating of the new RFID system with the current staff ID manual logging system, will go for a period of time which has yet to be determined. The completion of the automation project will see the RFID, staff ID and security gates fully integrated.

One of the primary pieces of technology being utilised in Melbourne City Council is the Intermec IF5 Fixed RFID Reader. The Intermec IF5 is a fixed smart reader that filters a range of information from tags, monitors external sensors and controls audible. It manages to do all this without the added expense of a separate server ‘box’, required by the majority of other RFID scanning solutions.

The RFID system has provided for accurate accounting of the vehicles to and from the council’s premises. Among the employers who will be using this new automated system are members of the Melbourne City Council Corporate Transport Office. It is expected that over a period of time the RFID solution will enable the Corporate Transport Office to have full visibility of its entire short-term transport fleet and have reliable immediate information on hand.

Before the installation of the RFID program, the entire process of logging vehicles was done manually. The council’s personnel used to update the data to the council’s server using a pen and paper. This proved to be both a costly and inefficient exercise, proving to be unsustainable for the council.

The process of individually logging each vehicle is now replaced by an automated system, saving time and improving overall worker efficiency. The logging of the vehicles is automated with the Gamma Solutions RFID technology, creating a database of vehicles logged during each day. With the new system now in place, the council has been able to achieve a sharp cut in the amount of wasted paper and other materials.

Importantly, the Melbourne City Council’s RFID application delivered a clear return on investment, Cr Shanahan said.

“The RFID technology has resulted in significant productivity gains for fleet management services while return on investment is immediate,” he said.

The ongoing assistance provided by Gamma Solutions allowed the council to continue its day-to-day normal business activities with as little disruption to duties as possible during the project’s implementation.

“Gamma Solutions was able to provide an end-to-end solution with the supply of the relevant hardware and software. With qualified RFID specialists, the system was designed as to allow for minimal impact to the day-to-day operations of the business during the various implementation stages,” Mr Valdez said.

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