Winter Road Maintenance Program – Phase 2 Analysis: Deploying Resources

It is important to analyze long-term multi-million dollar contracts that are ready for renewal to assess if the City is receiving value for money before entering into new contracts. This report considers whether the City was receiving the best value for money by contracting out winter maintenance services (vs an in-house solution) and identifies opportunities for improved cost-effectiveness in managing the contracted services model.

By the Numbers

• $90M budgeted annually and $411M spent in last 5 years on winter maintenance
• 57% or $47M of annual budget and $237M actual expenditures for contractor standby payments in last 5 years

What We Found

A – see Confidential Attachment 1*

B – see Confidential Attachment 1*

C – Collecting and Using Data

• The Division did not sufficiently analyze operational winter maintenance data to monitor contract performance and realize efficiencies and savings through better management of fleet capacity
• Many issues with the overall consistency of how the payment data was recorded
• It took significant effort and resources to correct the errors and make the data usable for analysis
• The Division could benefit from analyzing valuable operational data to improve operations, specifically, route efficiency and fleet optimization

How Recommendations Will Benefit the City

By implementing the four recommendations contained in this report, and depending on the cost model employed in the new contracts, considerable cost savings and operating efficiencies may be achieved for the contracted winter maintenance services.

*Reason for Confidential Attachment:

Confidential Attachment 1 describes criteria that the City should consider applying during negotiations that will be carried on by or on behalf of the City of Toronto, including information regarding the criteria that should be applied when negotiating and preparing contracts.