The Greenville City Council may finally be starting to see a glimmer of light at the end of a tunnel that has been the water and utility debacle.
During a regular Tuesday meeting, council voted unanimously to either authorize or approve the following: SmartPhone meter reader training with C2Logix, Inc. for meter reading route efficiency at a cost to be determined, C2Logix, Inc. to optimize utility cycle billing based on route optimization and W.L. Burle Engineers, PA to use electronic software for location of missing water meters.
For 20 years, C2Logix has provided businesses a means to optimize routes for a single vehicle or an entire fleet of mobile workers according to the company’s website.
Residents and their concerns have been the focal point of nearly every discussion among the mayor and council as it pertains to addressing billing and other utility-related issues.
After several public works committee meetings led by councilmen Al Bock and James Wilson and collaborative efforts made by public works director Jermaine Thornton and others, traction is being gained.
Manchac Management Services’ Justin Haydel informed the council that as it relates to the meter reading route efficiency, the cost would be $10,147.
Haydel recalled to the council a presentation given during an Oct. 2019 regular meeting by the Smart Phone meter reading representatives which was followed by unanimous approval of the technology.
“Along with that, we did routes not only for the meter reading but also for the garbage pickup,” Haydel pointed out. “With the garbage pickup, we provided the routes on tablets so that when the city would hire a new truck driver, there wouldn’t be a learning curve.”
Haydel explained basically the same thing was done for the water meter reading routes, but at that time, the water meter reading routes were not “contiguous.”
“In other words, part of cycle 1 was in the north part of town and the other part of cycle 1 was in the south side of town,” he said.
The previous water and utility director and his staff were reluctant to make such changes out of concern it would be too much of a learning curve for the water meter readers who were being employed at the time.
Haydel said now, the department is looking to make all four of the cycles contiguous.
He further clarified for the council what the change would entail.
“You’d have four cycles within each month and within each cycle, you’d have anywhere from 30 something odd routes — so each cycle will be contiguous and this company will prepare the maps that show the meter readers the most efficient route to travel within each route of that cycle,” Haydel said, adding, “that information will be programmed into the smartphones they’re already using.”
In the spring of 2020, the SmartPhone meter reading training was halted due to the COVID-19 pandemic, just as the new system was being integrated.
Haydel shared with the council those who conduct the training will be returning to retrain the water meter reading staff — a task he estimates will take a month to complete.
“So, hopefully by around the middle of March, all of the water meter readers will be using the smartphones and have the routes loaded on their phones,” he said.
Mayor Errick Simmons reiterated the priority is making sure they address the water issue.
“So we are looking at the people, hardware and the software,” he said.
Haydel noted moving forward, the department will not rely on the automated meter reading systems saying, “The reason for that is because the automated meter reading system, pure and simple, just doesn’t work right.”
“One week the automated meter reading system will send in meters at a certain location of town and then the next week, it won’t send those meters into the city’s system. So, the boots on the ground people, they never know where to go,” he explained. “This way, with all the meters being manually read, we think it will improve the ability of the city to accurately have billing information that they need.”
Brock commended the efforts being made to mitigate the water and utility situation.
“We’re on track to try to straighten some of this out by discontinuing this old system that didn’t work,” he said. “This is not some unproven, untried deal, it’s an effective way for us to increase efficiency and get the meters read properly.”
Councilwoman Lurann Thomas-Kingdom added that she wants residents to know the project is a new undertaking and the intention is not to overcharge or over bill in dong so, but quite the opposite.
“What we’re doing is implementing a new system whereas their meters can be read accurately,” she said.
