Greenlee County presents fleet analytics to guide vehicle replacement

Tony Hines, Fleet Manager, told the Greenlee County Board of Supervisors that staff has built an analytic framework to track vehicle maintenance, mileage and lifetime operating cost to inform replacement decisions.

The presentation described how handwritten mechanic work orders are entered into the PubWorks software and then summarized in spreadsheets that show odometer logs, in‑house and outside shop hours, parts costs and a lifetime cost timeline for each vehicle. Hines said those summaries let staff pull a vehicle history and “run a report on all the work orders that were done that year, and find out why.”

The nut graf: the county is moving from ad hoc, experience‑based replacement to a point‑scoring system adapted from larger jurisdictions. The system assigns points for age, mileage and maintenance; vehicles scoring above a threshold are flagged for replacement planning.

Hines showed graphs for individual units — maintenance and repair costs, miles driven and fuel cost — and described a composite operating‑cost metric that combines those elements. He said the county’s PubWorks records go back to 2006; older data are not available. Mechanics write handwritten work orders, which a staff member (Jim) enters into PubWorks; the database then feeds the analytics.

County staff and supervisors discussed using the model to match vehicle type to mission: high‑mileage commuter cars versus low‑mileage maintenance trucks and heavy equipment. Commissioners noted that some trucks accumulate little mileage and could be retained longer, while law‑enforcement and animal control units rack up miles quickly and may require earlier replacement or different procurement approaches.

Hines and the manager’s office said they have adapted scoring rules used by larger fleets (the City of Dallas example was cited) and assigned a red flag to vehicles scoring above 10 on the county scale. That flag is intended to prompt replacement planning over a multi‑year rotation so the county can target replacement cycles of roughly five to seven years for some units and much longer for low‑use equipment.

Board members asked operational questions — for example, whether drivers who travel frequently could be assigned lower‑mileage vehicles to equalize wear — and staff said reassignment and “hand‑me‑down” patterns are already part of the discussion. Hines also said the county is scanning outside invoices into PubWorks to reduce duplicate data entry and that staff has considered tablets to let mechanics enter work orders directly in the field.

Ending: County staff said the analytics will inform upcoming budget and replacement discussions and provide a data basis for recommendations on procurement, leasing and lifecycle timing.