Congratulations to the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority (GCRTA) for their resourcefulness in running a top notch fleet! They were recently awarded the Government Fleet of the Year by FleetOwner.com.
Limited Funding for Most Government Fleets
If there is one problem which government fleets have constantly had to face, it is the problem of severely limited funding. For the most part, that funding problem is not something they have caused themselves, but due to factors they have no control over. Right now, the GCRTA is facing a similar problem because of the state funding falling short.
The GCRTA are facing problems in funding mainly due to the deficit regarding the revenue generated by the Medicaid tax which the federal government has stopped allowing. It’s made worse by the Ohio general funding becoming less available. The GCRTA is being forced to change things up in order to cope with this problem.
When the Going Gets Tough…
Under normal circumstances, a shortfall in funding can be very detrimental for a government fleet. Government fleets start to panic and look for solutions to the problem but the options are not great. That is not the case with the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority. In anticipation of such tough times, the GCRTA has been in the works to formulate a plan which allows them to make use of a predictive maintenance program for its government fleet. In spite of the limited funding that the GCRTA has right now, they are able to use the predictive maintenance to better maintain the buses in their fleet. No compromise on serving their customers is being endured.
Predictive Maintenance
Making sure that the costs of maintenance for government fleets is contained, is no small feat. With reduced funds, the GCRTA has had to ensure their MSBI (miles between service interruption) for the buses were high.
2015 saw the GCRTA start making use of predictive maintenance to improve the reliability of the buses. Taking care of the buses’ maintenance needs before the need arises has helped the GCRTA keep their buses in service for longer without having to spend more time in the shop for repairs.
Predictive maintenance was being used by other cities to improve the service of their government fleets but the GCRTA worked with a transit asset maintenance company to formulate their own method for predictive maintenance to make a more efficient system.
This partnership resulted in a tailored predictive maintenance solution for the buses in this government fleet to ensure that the preventative maintenance measures makes the fleet more efficient. This also saw a good percentage decrease in the unexpected breakdowns in the fleet buses.
It is no wonder that the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority has been awarded the Government Fleet of the Year award for their ingenuity.
Source: https://www.fleetowner.com/fleet-management/government-fleet-year-greater-cleveland-regional-transit-authority
