Snow removal is an annual responsibility of cities and municipalities, and using appropriate tools is crucial to keeping roads safe for traffic while satisfying residents.
Optimizing service routes is essential to minimizing unbillable hours and optimizing working time, as well as cutting fuel costs and wear on vehicles, and increasing clientele served daily.
Route Optimization
Snow removal businesses can save unbillable hours spent travelling by optimizing their routes. This process involves an in-depth examination of factors like weather conditions, traffic patterns and priority locations such as hospitals and schools as well as geographic features like hills and bridges that could affect driving conditions.
Municipal representatives can leverage GPS fleet tracking systems to optimize snowplow truck routes and ensure streets are plowed correctly and comprehensively on their first pass, for instance by limiting left turns which reduce the number of passes required to clear an entire street or neighborhood.
Field service software should allow you to set billing rules and routes before any snow event, so employees and subcontractors can simply log time on mobile field service apps or online portals and be automatically invoiced after its conclusion. This streamlines operations while increasing employee satisfaction while saving both fuel costs and driver wages.
Pre-Season Visits
Like many field service industries, snow removal often experiences busy and slow seasons depending on its location, necessitating price increases to remain profitable.
One effective strategy to prevent clients from defecting during a price increase is carefully planning when and how you raise prices. In general, raising them during off season allows competitors less chance to poach customers away.
Preseason snow visits allow owners of snow businesses to review and update their standard operating procedures with both crews and clientele, as well as survey properties to note any hazards, property changes or preexisting damage that might compromise performance. By documenting and uploading photographs during these visits, snow businesses can reduce liability risk by drawing special attention to areas requiring special consideration – something particularly essential for large or complex landscapes which require extra time and resources to maintain.
Scheduling
Reducing liability exposure while increasing productivity can be challenging in snow removal businesses, so employing fleet tracking tools and organization software may help. By helping to eliminate unbillable hours spent travelling between jobs sites, these solutions could prove indispensable in increasing productivity.
Cities such as Boston employ SnowCOP, which uses GPS technology to track each snowplow truck real time. This system helps prioritize routes during inclement weather by prioritizing emergency responder routes as well as those that serve commercial or residential areas as well as bridges or steep hills.
Optimized routes also help municipalities save money, by decreasing fuel consumption and equipment costs. Furthermore, data-driven approach to route planning can dramatically enhance service quality over time. GIS/GPS technology provides invaluable help when it comes to removing snow from streets safely while minimizing environmental impacts – this includes selecting sites where snow storage could serve as an alternative solution.
Communication
As snow removal costs continue to escalate, business owners must increase their prices accordingly in order to remain profitable while serving unprofitable clients. Unfortunately, it’s an unfortunate but necessary part of operating a snow business.
Snow and ice removal companies that use HindSite Connect as part of their marketing solution know exactly how to soothe client worries when raising their rates. With it’s service business marketing solution capabilities, companies can communicate with clients before, during and after snow events to keep them up-to-date throughout their experience.
Big data and location tracking technologies also assist city planners in optimizing snowplow truck routes to keep major transportation and commerce centers moving during a snowstorm, as well as helping determine how and where snow is removed from city streets and disposed of. This information feeds into a predictive model, helping ensure city crews are prepared for each winter storm and reduce salt use costs.