Memorandum

City of Lawrence

Public Works

TO:	Mark Thiel, Assistant Director of Public Works
FROM:	Mike Perkins, Street Division Manager
DATE:	September 30, 2014
RE:	Retro-fit Tandem Axle Dump Trucks with Wing Plows

Please include the following item on the City Commission Consent Agenda for consideration at the October 21, 2014 meeting.

Background

Historically the City of Lawrence has used conventional front mounted 10’ snow plows as the workhorse of its snow plowing fleet. Typical dump trucks that are equipped with a standard 10 foot wide snow plow have an operational snow removal capacity of 8’ 6” after the plow is angled. Snow removal on arterial roadways is a major undertaking using conventional trucks and snow plows. With limited or no traffic interference using a conventionally equipped snow plow truck can clear up to 14.30 lane miles of 12 foot roadway at 20 mph in one hour. Most arterial lanes are 12 feet wide with multiple lane configurations of 4 to 6 or more lanes plus multiple turn lanes. This configuration of lanes makes many locations 84 feet wide or more, requiring 10 or more passes with a conventional snow plow and truck.

By comparison a snow plow truck equipped with the conventional front mounted snow plow and an additional wing plow has the snow removal capacity 15’ 6” and can clear up to 26.0 miles of 12 foot roadway at the same 20 mph. The increased snow removal capacity reduces the number of passes needed to clear the same 84 foot roadway down to 6 passes. The overall improvement in snow removal capacity provides for improved efficiency for the operation and an increase in of 82% in head to head comparison of conventional snow plow trucks verse trucks equipped with front plows and wing plows.

The current fleet has ten (10) conventionally equipped dump truck units and two (2) dump truck units that are equipped with front plows and wing plows. The wing plow units are new to our fleet this year and are assigned to our ever expanding arterial and collector road mileage. The wing plows are cost effective ways to bridge the gap without having to immediately increase the size of the fleet.   

Over the course of a snow and ice season the increased productivity of these types of vehicles can provide considerable cost savings. The average hourly cost for snow plow operations including operators is $1,588.75 per hour; this does not included material, fuel or repair costs. With the added capacity that wing plow equipped trucks can provide a realistic reduction in plowing operations of 4 hours per snow plow event can yield savings $6,355.00 per event. Assuming four (4) major snow plowing events in a season the annual operational savings could be $25,420.

We would like retro fit two additional tandem axel trucks that are currently in our snow removal fleet. These trucks are 2013 models and will have many years of service before they will be considered for replacement. The City of Olathe has cooperatively bid #14-4398 and awarded to American Equipment Co. to purchase the needed parts and labor to retro-fit existing snow plow trucks with wing plows we would ask permission exercise to this contract to retro-fit our two dump trucks not to exceed $25,000.  To fund this request we would like to use money saved from our annual in-house crack sealing program, these savings are due to better than expected pricing on material and favorable weather conditions in the spring during our first phase of applications we have under run the budgeted amount by $26,863.00. The additional dollars, over the listed quote will be for miscellaneous costs associated with the retro-fitting.

Bids

2	Parts and labor to purchase and install 8’ wing plows	$11,698.00	$23,396.00
Total			$23,396.00

Project Funding

Funding will be from the annual Street Maintenance program as provided in the 2014 budget.

Action Requested

Approve the purchase of wing plow retro-fitting utilizing the City of Olathe cooperatively bid contract #14-4398 and awarded to American Equipment Co. not to exceed $25,000.