OTTAWA, ON – At the recent MuniWireless SV 2006 conference, municipalities learned that they can leverage their existing or planned municipal WiFi infrastructure by deploying a wireless fleet monitoring solution to lower fleet maintenance costs, increase efficiencies in city vehicles, and improve service to businesses.

In a presentation titled, “Municipal and Public WiFi Projects and Fleet Vehicle Services,” John Woronczuk, VP of Marketing and Business Development for Netistix, explained how cities can take advantage of their wireless infrastructures to monitor driver habits and realize cost savings in municipal utility, enforcement, or public safety vehicles.

Several major cities throughout North America, including San Francisco, Philadelphia, and Toronto, are moving quickly to develop “mesh” networks that run on the WiFi wireless standard. These networks can be constructed at a reasonable cost and, in turn, they can be used to provide Internet access to city residents.

One solution presented at the conference, Netistix FleetPulse, accesses these WiFi networks to securely transmit information from a fleet vehicle to a monitoring application at no charge. Woronczuk demonstrated how a fleet monitoring system lets municipalities monitor vehicle driver habits to identify poor driving behavior and track wasted or stolen fuel. He also outlined how a small- to mid-sized city could reduce fleet expenses by 10 percent using FleetPulse.

“Maintaining and managing a municipal fleet can represent a significant expense for a city,” Woronczuk said. “By using a wireless fleet monitoring system, a city can take advantage of existing municipal WiFi infrastructure to help it cut those costs and increase efficiencies in fleets through effective, low-cost fleet monitoring.”

Not only does the municipality benefit directly, but other commercial fleets within the city can also take advantage of the city-wide network to deploy wireless fleet monitoring solutions for their own operations.