Building a Safer Dodge City with Motive AI Dashcams and AI Omnicams.

Written by Collin Clark, Public Information Officer, City of Dodge City

Without visibility, we couldn’t provide the best service

Our 200 city vehicles are crucial to our work throughout the community. But we didn’t always have visibility inside, outside, and around our vehicles to know what was happening in the community in real time. We didn’t know what we couldn’t see and that led to incidents, customer service inquiries, and risky driving behaviors. We can’t improve what we don’t truly understand so we needed a solution that could give us a clear view of our drivers, vehicles, and the community—all with safety in mind. 

For example, if a resident called to tell us a sanitation truck missed their trash can on garbage day pickup, we had no way to verify if we did or didn’t. Was there a car or something else blocking the garbage? Was it in the right place? Was it out at the right time? We had no idea. If one of our vehicles was involved in a dispute or an accident, we couldn’t see what really happened. This lack of information had an operational and cost impact. We might send another vehicle out to pick up that customer’s garbage, and without evidence that our driver wasn’t at fault in an accident, we almost took the blame.

Motive changed all that. We partnered with them to increase the visibility of our vehicles and drivers on our city streets through Motive AI dual-facing Dashcams and AI Omnicams. But we got far more than we expected because the data we can now access has helped us not only improve safety, but improve operations and efficiency.

More context for activities inside and outside city vehicles

Motive advanced our safety initiatives by allowing us to see and capture everything that happens in and around each vehicle. Sanitation trucks are a good example—they’re large, and it’s hard to know what’s happening all around them. With the Motive AI Omnicams, we have a complete view of the area, so we can spot a runner coming around the corner, a dog rushing across the street, or another vehicle trying to pass. We can see certain situations play out and address these situations, whether it’s with community members or our drivers. We can even look back at an incident and see what happened rather than relying on memory and witnesses. 

These cameras also open avenues for discussion. We can discuss scenarios or specific situations, such as, “Make sure you’re watching out for the bike path when you’re in this area,” or, “Things are much tighter on that street when cars are parked on both sides, so you might have to turn around on the next street over.” We’re reducing many everyday concerns regarding driving safety and can examine trends to develop in-depth training around specific issues in the future.

We can also see what’s happening inside the cab for the safety of our drivers and the community. The cameras ensure compliance with our safety protocols and provide us with an understanding of why a driver might have made a hard stop or suddenly picked up speed. With more context, we gain greater insights into the situations that our drivers face every day and can make consistent improvements.

These new features benefit the driver experience. Audible notifications inside the vehicle alert drivers if they are speeding, are on their cell phone, forgot to fasten their seat belt, or are hard cornering or hard braking, for example. These alerts help drivers correct behaviors in the moment, which leads to better driving habits, fewer accidents and a safer community.

Increased efficiency and decreased costs

In addition to increased safety, the Motive AI Dashcams have helped us become more proactive and realize time and cost savings. Our mechanics love Motive’s real-time diagnostics, which they use to see what’s happening in the field. For example, if a truck is having coolant issues, the mechanic is alerted and has access to fault codes. Then they can contact the driver and decide if the vehicle is safe to drive. Access to this data means our mechanics can be ahead of preventative maintenance and address small issues before they become larger, more costly problems.

The impact is significant when we multiply that capability over our 200-vehicle fleet. The in-depth diagnostics allow us to act on small repairs and vehicle maintenance before they become more extensive and more expensive, thereby reducing costs. 

We’ve also been able to save costs by reducing idling times. Sometimes vehicle idling is unavoidable, especially when temperatures are extremely hot or cold. But unnecessary idling wastes fuel, puts extra strain on vehicles, and increases air pollution. We can identify which vehicles are idling and simultaneously address the issue while educating our workforce. We’ve seen a reduction in idling times based on the real-time reports from Motive, which means we’ve also saved money on fuel costs.

Better communication leads to better connections

We are a minority-majority community in Dodge City, with a large Hispanic population and corresponding workforce. With Motive, we can better communicate with our employees in their preferred language. If they’re more comfortable using the technology in Spanish, that option is available. This improves the employee experience and helps make them feel even more valued. 

The improved data and communication from Motive AI Dashcams help us deliver better, safer services. It’s what we’ve always tried to do, and now that we have the ability to see what’s happening on our roads and in our vehicles in real time, we can tailor our approach, all in support of the community.

Change doesn’t happen overnight. It takes time, and Dodge City is evidence of that. Using Motive, we can serve our citizens to our fullest potential. We can see mistakes we’ve made, address them, and ensure that our services to the community are to the highest standard so we can achieve our core purpose: making Dodge City the best place to be.

The testimonials, statements, and opinions presented on this webpage reflect the real-life experiences of individuals and/or companies who have used our products and/or services. Individual results may vary and past performance is not a guarantee of future results. The testimonials presented on this webpage were voluntarily provided and not paid.