Sourcing Technology in Public Works

Public Works departments in local government are experiencing a technology revolution; yet countless hours are lost searching for vendors, checking references, writing RFP's, or evaluating proposals rather than being in the field. Stop buying, start sourcing.

Leak detection, pothole detection, garbage truck routing, connected street lights…literally every department across Public Works in local government is experiencing a technology evolution. Countless hours are spent researching and planning the products, meeting with vendors, writing the bids and  RFP’s, and waiting for vendors to respond with a proposal to solicit.
 
Cities and counties nationwide partner with Marketplace.city to use our market landscapes from planning and budgeting to purchasing. 

Smart Waste Management: Can be garbage collection routing software, or can be actual garbage bins. Garbage bins can be standard bins to smart solar compactors (like the ones by BigBelly), or can be garbage bin sensors (lower cost) etc. All of these can be plugged into smart collection routing software to optimize collection routes and times. We have an active project with Aurora, IL in this space currently, and have provided our data on this to other cities.

311 City Services: This is city services: allowing people to call in or make a service request or lodge a complaint with the city either online or over the phone. The main thing is the backend of these systems, so how they route requests to the correct departments and provide reports and tracking for resolution etc. It’s very important for cities because it’s often the primary way that they come in contact with residents, so having an intuitive system with a solid backend makes a big difference. We’ve done a project recently in this space with Evanston, and are helping South Bend with it too. We have a ton of data on these systems.

Parking Security: Can be just showing what the best practices are in this space, to helping them find the right technology (emergency phone systems, cameras with LPR, or parking registration sign in software, or even automated garage doors. On security in general, we have data on security camera vendors as well as security camera maintenance vendors and VMS (video management systems) to manage the cameras.

Pothole Management: This is more Pavement Management Systems: systems that allow the city to track and document road conditions against some sort of road condition index, and that can then help cities prioritize maintenance and repairs. Some of these are automated (cameras attached to cars automatically tracking road condition index) and some of them are manual, requiring someone to document every pothole.

Streetlight Upgrades: Big concern for cities is their streetlight upgrades: many of them have old street lights that cost them a lot of money and they need to upgrade them to LED streetlights that not only lower their electricity bills but also provide better lighting for their communities. These can be expensive projects, and we have a ton of data on that area. We’re helping a community in Wisconsin with that right now (Port Edwards, WI). Big thing is determining whether wiring and power infrastructure needs upgrading, as well as the condition of the light poles (they can be a big additional cost). Also making sure they’re getting quoted on the right type of fixture replacement, as well as figuring out funding/financing for this, since there’s a lot of ways that these can be financed.

Flood Management: We have data on stormwater modeling and stormwater monitoring software/hardware that can help communities predict the likelihood of floods in certain areas and coordinate responses and public safety better.

Forestry Management Software: We helped the City of South Bend with this recently. Every city needs to do it: every tree in the city needs to be monitored and maintained, and can’t be allowed to grow randomly. This can also help with digital equity drives since minority neighborhoods often have less greenery, so having software like this can help prioritize new trees etc in different neighborhoods.

Permitting & Licensing Software: Cities issue tons of permits and licenses to businesses and residents for all kinds of things, from building or improving homes, to liquor licenses and business licenses. A lot of cities rely on old software to do this and we’ve seen a lot of cities start to look at getting something more modern that allows for more intuitive workflows and allows attaching documents and marking up documents and responses (e-Plan Review is a big component of this), and that also ties in with inspection software. We’ve recently helped the City of Champaign, IL with a project in this space, as well as South Bend, IN and we’re starting to help a small community in Texas to look at that too.

Capital Planning Software: We’ve helped South Bend, IN look at different options for capital planning software to help them manage the finances relating to their different buildings, and plan out their capital spend for many years out. Complex software with engineering components, very important to have something modern and that allows importing old facility condition index data to the new system.

EPA Compliance Software: Cities have been tasked with replacing lead service lines (that carry water). By the end of 2024 cities need to have a full inventory of lead service lines and come up with a plan to replace them. Specialized software helps cities keep track of their lead service line inventory while also connecting them to engineers and testing kits and strategies to go out and do the testing/replacement.