Fleet Services Division
Who we are
The Fleet Services Division is a group of professional Managers, Supervisors and Technicians responsible for the supply of vehicles and vehicle maintenance and repairs for City of London Departments as well as a number of Public Agencies.
What we do
We provide fleet management, fleet maintenance, fuel management and fabrication services to 28 Divisions within the City of London Civic Departments including Environmental & Engineering Services, Community Services, Planning & Development and Finance & Corporate Services. In addition to supplying fleet and fabrications services to the city's civic departments, Fleet Services provides similar services to other public agencies such as Animal Control, London Library Board and Tourism London. Under special circumstances, such services may be provided to other commercial agencies as well.
Because the city's fleet is so diverse, the services provided by Fleet Services are broad and wised-ranging. They include preventative maintenance programs, inspections, towing, lubrications, auto body repair, accident damage, seasonal overhauls and rebuilding components. The Fabrication Shop can design and fabricate trailers, compartment bodies, specialized tooling and provide other general welding, machining and metal fabrication.
Why we do it
To ensure City of London departments, as well as the public agencies who's fleets we support, have the vehicles and equipment they need to service the citizens of London.
How to Contacts us:
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Division Manager
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| 519 661-2500 Ext.4961 |
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Manager - Fleet Maintenance & Operations
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Manager - Fleet Administration & Engineering
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| 519 661-2500 Ext.5413 |
519 661-2500 Ext.5573
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Mailing Address
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| City of London Fleet Services |
| A.J.Tyler Operations Centre - 2nd Floor |
| 663 Bathurst Street |
| London, Ontario |
| N5Z 1P8 |
| Fax 519 661-5845 |
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Fleet Control Section:
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Coordinates the supply of City owned vehicles and equipment for short term and long term requirements including the supply of standby vehicle pool units.
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Expedites request and coordinates the supply of external rental vehicles and equipment both with and without operator.
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Administers fleet supply contracts and billing.
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Processes all vehicle and equipment rentals and coordinates the return of external rental vehicles and equipment.
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Manages fleet registration, licensing and insurance.
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Manages client fleet compliment information of all city owned and leased units and determines client's full cost accounting fleet budget.
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Manages the disposal of city owned vehicles and equipment.
Fleet Technical Services Section:
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Coordinates the fleet acquisition (FAST) process including engineering, preparations of specifications, and evaluations of bids, tender awards, vendor payment and commissioning.
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Provides technical advice for vehicles and equipment including axle weight and dimension compliance.
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Researches and coordinates new vehicle and equipment operational demonstrations.
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Establishes standards for vehicle and equipment classifications, components, build quality and maintenance.
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Develops and maintains standards for products such as fuel, engine oils, lubricants and coolants.
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Ensures warranty commitments are fulfilled and manufacturer recalls and bulletins are communicated and adhered to.
Fleet Services provides a quality selection and specification consultation service to its departmental clients. Clients using Fleet Services include the Environmental & Engineering Services Department, Community Services Department, Planning & Development Department, Finance & Corporate Services Department, Library Board, Tourism London, Animal Control, Market Parking and Goodwill Industries.
Fleet Services has an ongoing initiative through the Fleet Acquisitions and Specification Team (Fast) to seek out efficiencies through right sizing specifications with departmental clients. This includes optimizing engines sizes, vehicle weights, outfitting and standardizing fleet specifications across departments. As the City continues to grow, it is reasonable to expect new or expanded programs will require more vehicles and equipment to deliver services in a cost effective manner. Fleet is developing Green Fleet initiatives to mitigate the environmental impact of the existing fleet and any future growth that may occur.
Education, training and consultation to identify vehicle needs and new technologies are some of the services provided to Fleet Services clients. In 2004 A Fleet Replacement and Procurement Manual was developed to assist clients in understanding the strategies and protocols used when replacing and adding fleet vehicles and equipment to the clients assigned fleet equipment. In 2005, Fleet Services expanded its strategy of "brand standardization" to the city's light vehicle fleet purchases and acquisitions.
There are also plans to expand the future use of hybrid gas/electric fleet vehicles that may be available in the light truck classifications and expanding the use of alternative fuelled vehicles and equipment such as propane, natural gas and bio-diesel powered units, where practical.
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The size of our fleet operations enables us to offer a wide breadth of services. The varied types of fleet equipment maintained include light/medium/heavy vehicles, off road equipment, turf maintenance equipment, aerial devices, snow control equipment, auxiliary and hydraulic mounted equipment and hand held motorized tools. In addition, we offer auto body repairs and paint to all types of vehicles and equipment plus design modifications, fabrications, welding and machining services.
The technical competencies of our personnel are varied and of the highest quality. We provide up to date training for our technicians. Expertise on particular types of equipment is available during all hours of operations and not limited by time of day or day of the week. We work with customers to design the best supported fleet equipment for their operations by providing services during their off hours, doing work on site where feasible and by responding to their unique operational needs.
The Environmental Services and Engineering Department - Fleet Services Division has three fleet repair garages locations at the main operations centers in the city's North ( 1153 Adelaide St. North ), Central ( 663 Bathurst St ) and South ( 3508 Wonderland Rd. South ) sections of the city.
The Central garage at the A.J. Tyler Operations Centre is also where the Fleet Administration offices are located. The garages are capable of performing most of the maintenance work required on the more than 100 different vehicles and equipment types within the fleet. Contracted services are used to supplement the city staff in maintenance area such as spring repair, tire, glass work, upholstery, sandblasting, radiators and towing services.
Parts inventories at the satellite garages are held to a minimum, with the majority of the parts supplied by Bathurst Automotive Stores and local vendor on a just-in -time basis.
Each garage is managed by an on-site "Fleet Supervisor". The Fleet Supervisor has the authority and responsibility to run each garage as an independent entity. The supervisor has authority to contract work out, and independently manage the shop resources.
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The Environmental Services and Engineering Department - Fleet Services Division has fully automated fuelling locations at the main operations centers in the city's North ( 1153 Adelaide St. North ), Central ( 663 Bathurst St ) and South ( 3508 Wonderland Rd. South ) sections of the city.
The combined fleet of owned and leased vehicles and equipment will consume over three million liters of fuel each year. With this tremendous amount of annual fuel consumption, Fleet Services has been pursuing a number of environmentally conscious fleet greening initiatives in recent years.
Green Fleet
The introduction of fleet greening initiatives introduced in recent years includes:
Ethanol-blended gasoline - The City of London has been purchasing ethanol-blended gasoline since 2001. This gasoline contains up to 10% ethanol, and is referred to as E-10 blended gasoline. According to the Canadian Renewable Fuels Association (CRFA), the use of E-10 blended gasoline has a net greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction of around 4% compared to gasoline, once the life-cycle GHG emissions from ethanol production have been taken into account. This gasoline is also MMT-free (methylcyclopentadienyl manganese tricarbonyl). There have been no operational problems observed from the use of E-10 blends in our vehicle fleet. There were some perceived problems with our small engine fleet (lawn mowers, chain saws, etc.) at first, but these proved to be due to other factors.
Natural Gas - All 14 ice-surface resurfacers (Zambonis) used in city arenas are powered by natural gas. This has the added benefit of improved indoor air quality at the arenas. In terms of road vehicles, the city did a trial with natural gas vehicles from 1993 to 1998 and has since decided not to proceed further until the natural gas refueling infrastructure within the city increases. Currently there is only one commercial refilling station operating within the city of London.
Low-sulphur diesel - The City of London has been purchasing low-sulphur diesel fuel for its whole fleet since 2001. Low-sulphur diesel contains typically less than 500 ppm (0.05%) sulphur, and is federally regulated for diesel used in on-road vehicles (i.e., clear diesel) since 1998. Diesel fuel for use in off-road vehicles (i.e., coloured diesel) has no regulated sulphur limit, and is typically in the 3000 ppm (0.3%) range for sulphur. However, in the London area, all diesel sold by local distributors is low-sulphur diesel, due to the nature of the local distribution network. Please note that this should not be confused with ultra-low sulphur diesel, which has a sulphur content of 15 ppm. As of June 1, 2006, federal regulations require all clear diesel sold in Canada to be ultra-low sulpher diesel.
Hybrid Vehicles and Smart Cars - Fleet Services has purchased nine hybrid gasoline-electric vehicles for use in the City fleet in 2004. Three 2004 Honda Civics three 2006 Honda Civics and three 2004 Toyota Prius'. Also purchased were two Smart Cars. These units are being utilized full time in various Civic departments.
Propane - With the current fleet and the availability of cleaner-burning gasoline-powered vehicles, propane powered vehicles are not quite as popular as they were 15-20 years ago. The City of London still operates 60 dual fuel (propane and gasoline) vans and trucks. The high mileage, 150 plus unit, London Police fleet is primarily propane powered. Fleet Services has begun to phase-out the use of propane vehicles that require "after market" conversions, due to maintenance and reliability difficulties. And is keeping a watchful eye on the Big Three (GM, Ford, DaimlerChrysler) to produce factory-built propane vehicles with fewer maintenance issues.
Vehicle Specification - As a guiding principle, Fleet Services defines the specifications for new vehicles primarily on carrying/towing capacity need, with the aim to get the smallest engine that suits the vehicle need (e.g., V6 versus V8 engines for full-sized pick-ups). Fleet Services has also been looking into replacing existing vehicles with smaller vehicles, as dictated by customer needs. For example, Fleet Services determined the use of a smaller, more fuel efficient, Ford Focus station wagon would replace the minivans in the Building Inspection Division, given that their cargo capacity needs don't warrant the need for a large mini-van.
Future fleet greening initiatives
FleetSmart - Driver training activity will be enhanced in 2006, with the intention of making this training mandatory for all fleet driver/operators. A pilot training program will held with one operations division/section in order to work out any "kinks" in the training program. The long-term goal would be to provide FleetSmart training to all City divisions using City vehicles. Key resources for this activity would be the TDM Coordinator, Fleet Services, and NRCan.
IVTMS program - Fleet Services in partnership with Natural Resources Canada (Office of Energy Efficiency) and the Canadian Centre for pollution Prevention, paxgrid and Environment Canada will be testing an Intelligent Vehicle Tracking and Monitoring Systems (IVTMS) to monitor vehicle idle time, vehicle emissions and onboard vehicle diagnostic via the WEB. This will help in determining ways to reduce green house gas emissions. The pilot program will last for approx 18 months. This will include ongoing monitoring by all parties.
Biodiesel - Fleet Services is keeping a watchful eye on the biodiesel market and hoping local availability comes sooner then later. At this time, the closest distributor of biodiesel is located in Oakville. The transportation costs, combined with the premium cost for the biodiesel blends (20% biodiesel - B-20 blends), currently make biodiesel cost prohibitive. Fuel distributors have indicated they expect to be able to supply biodiesel in the London area in the near future. Until then Fleet Services will continue to monitor the environmental benefits of biodiesel.
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