How City of Hitchcock Developed a Cost-Effective Plan to Rehab its Streets

Hayley | Marketing Manager at iWorQ Systems:

Good afternoon.

We have a special guest here with us today. We'll be interviewing Leroy Thomas.

Leroy is the Public Works Operations Manager at the City of Hitchcock. City of Hitchcock is a great client of iWorQ and PublicWorks1.

We recently had our PublicWorks1 team go out to the city of Hitchcock to do a road assessment and capture the roads with our street level imagery.

Our road assessments are a great service that our team offers that can help cities extend the life of their roads.

If you don't know what street level imagery is, it's pretty cool.

It provides 360-degree panoramic images of streets and collects asset data that can be used to locate assets and visualize their conditions.

As you can imagine, this is pretty beneficial for cities to be able to keep track of everything and understand their assets, inventory conditions, and be able to schedule maintenance. There’s just a lot that cities can do with this information. And so, we're really excited to learn about the City of Hitchcock's experience with us is and see what their plans are with the information that our team was able to provide to them.

So, without further ado, we'd like to welcome Leroy.

Leroy | Public Works Operations Manager, City of Hitchcock, Texas:

Hello.

Hayley:

Hey, Leroy, thanks so much for joining us today.

We’re super excited to have you and learn more about your experience with us. We also have Carlos here with us today. He’s going to help guide the interview.

Let's go ahead and get started.

I know that we had the PublicWorks1 team came out to the City of Hitchcock recently.

How was that?

Was there anything super insightful that you learned with the data that our PublicWorks1 team collected?

Leroy:

Yeah. So initially we hired iWorQ to come in and do a road assessment for us, and in the process of trying to put a plan together to basically rehab a lot of our streets here in the city. We needed a good collection of data to be able to put a good solid plan together.

So iWorQ came in and it really taught me a lot. I’m not much of a street guy. My background is on water and sewer utility. So, you're still learning every day on the fly about the whole street process.

So a lot of the information that was provided for us was great.

Very insightful, informative on helping us get down to the real issue of what we have going on in relative to our streets.

All of the geographical data that they provided for us was as far as our signs are concerned, we haven't really gotten into it yet. with the sign module basically that's on me, because we're trying to employ some tablets out in the field, so trying to get all this set up so we can be able to utilize that tool. But I'm a fan, it's been really helpful up to this point.

We're still in the early stages of putting our plan together of what we have, but what we've been able to put together thus far. It had not been done out here to my knowledge. Everybody's been real receptive to all of the information, just trying to take it in a process it, analyze it, and put together a plan. so, it's been great for us.

Hayley:

That's great Leroy, how long have you been with the city?

Leroy:

Little over a year and a half. Two years in May.

Hayley:

That's awesome.

Leroy:

Yeah.

Hayley:

How would you on a scale of 1-10, would you rate your experience with iWorQ as far as our customer support?

Leroy:

Oh, it would be a 10/10 for me,

it's just the attentiveness that was offered, you know, throughout the whole process.

I mean, from the very beginning, I guess the first time I talked to I think his name was Troy, you know, getting everything setup, just walking me step by step through the process. Troy passed me off to Carlos. Carlos passed me off to Perry.

It was just a constant attention to detail. He was making certain that us as the customer was taken care of with whatever we need. Carlos was very very helpful to us, to me, specifically in helping me put the plan together for our city to present the findings of the road assessment. His help was just invaluable in that process. I mean, just to get us to that point,

and then from there Perry took us to the next step in helping us get everything setup as far as our iWorQ login information for our tablets, everybody has just been incredibly helpful. You know, I was really appreciative.

Carlos | Project Manager at iWorQ Systems & PublicWorks1:

Thank you for your kind words, Leroy!

I'm glad you had the opportunity to experience our world-class customer service.

Could you elaborate on how you went about making your plan and how you demonstrated it to your council or government agency?

Leroy:

Yeah, basically, we did some saved searches through our districts. We did everything by district breakdown, and we were able to accumulate a good real time snapshot of what our cost would be for each district to have our roads repaired. You know, within each district. I was able to show them an overall cost for these districts as well as just the cost per recommended treatment on the road assessment.

So, they were able to see, you know, how much routine maintenance we needed to do.

How much overlay we needed to do.

How much total construction we needed to do?

I think that was good for them to see in helping them comprehend exactly what we're trying to do here. A lot of times councils don't have a good knowledge as far as nuts and bolts. and also, with what we're trying to accomplish here. So, I think it was just good for us to provide a good overall synopsis of what we're trying to accomplish, and they were able to comprehend it. It was just good. I think the detail that we provided. You know of course with Carlo's help was very insightful to me.

Carlos:

Great, and how did they receive that data? Were they impressed with your presentation?

How did they take the presentation from other ones that you've maybe done in the past?

Leroy:

Yeah, well, I mean, like I said, I a part of what I would say is a new regime in the city, as far as leadership is concerned. So, prior to us getting here with my city manager, these types of things were not going forth if you will, So for them to see the amount of information and also I created a PowerPoint for the council meeting, aside from the PowerPoint that was given, I also put the entire road assessment for what it would cost the entire city in their agenda plan. So, they have the entire cost for what it will cost for the city to rehab all of our streets. The amount of information that was provided to them, they were they were ecstatic about that. They hadn't seen anything like that. They were very receptive, just really eager to get going with the project rolling quick, getting them on the road. So, everybody was very supportive. And, you know, just ready to see some change.

Carlos:

That's great to hear. Being able to present the road conditions and costs associated with your city network is a huge value to get approve funding from any city council.

Hayley:

Yeah, that's awesome.

Do you see this saving your city money in the future?

Leroy:

Oh, yeah. Without a doubt.

I mean, what this provided for us was basically all of the information put together a clear cut, concise plan going forward. We know now, looking at the information we have and what areas we need to tackle now versus maybe a couple of years down the road. It highlighted for us many of our problem areas and enabled us to put a good plan together. So, I think of course it's going to cost us some money to get things go in the future. But I think we've gotten a good road map that will allow us to make a big decision, so we won't have a waste another city dollar.

Hayley:

That's great.

Is there anything with our software in itself that stood out?

What do you think is the most valuable aspect of this is for you?

Leroy:

Well, I mean, all of them are. Every part of iWorQ that we use, I think it's valuable to us. you know, we're not a very big department. I think I have 4 expansions across 4 expansions that have maybe 20 people. This allows us to streamline our operation if you will. It cuts out the paper and it allows us to be more efficient.

We use the Work Management tool. We have the Signs tool. My mechanics in our fleet expansions we use Fleet Management. So, I mean, all of the modules are beneficial for us.

Let's look at City Hall. They use the Permitting Modules. Everything as far as iWorQ is concerned, has really helped us to be more efficient with our operation. That's one of the things that I like to hang my hat on, cause we don't have a tremendous amount of guys. So, we value experience and versatility. And along with these tools, it has allowed us to be, you know, more efficient and continue to increase our production rate. So, I think that's a that's a big thing for us.

Carlos:

That's a great point. Leroy iWorQ provides a wide variety of programs to streamline city processes, while helping city departments communicate more effectively.

Hayley:

Yeah. I just have another question here for you. With our PublicWorks1 team coming out and recording these roads, it seems like it brought a lot of valuable information back to you.

I just want to know, with that experience of it itself, did that provide you with what you expected, or did they surprise you with anything else that you didn't know that you were going to get out of this experience?

Leroy:

Yeah, well, I mean, for me, oh, this was a first for me. I didn't know such a thing existed; a roads assessment existed. So, it was a learning opportunity for me to see exactly what they do and what their job offers to the entire process.

And I think none of this could had happened without those guys. And they also took the time with me while they were here on the grounds of Hitchcock to get me out and show me the basics of what they do. How they rate the roads, how they identify some of the cracking that we have in our roads. They walked through all of that with me. So was very appreciative of that. And like I said, it was all new to me. So, you know, it was just it was interesting to me.

Hayley:

And where you were saying you didn't know that the road assessments existed?

What were you doing beforehand?

Leroy:

Well, like I said, I'm not a street department guy, so, I really you know, this is something that I really took on when I came to Hitchcock. So, you know, in a in another city, I had a responsibility of the streets. But it wasn't to this extent. I didn't even know these things existed. I mean, it was just like I said it was also a good teachable moment for me to learn it.

Hayley:

That's great to hear, Leroy. I'm glad we were able to help you out. And I really appreciate you taking the time to share your experience with us. I believe those are the only questions I have for you.

Carlos, do you have any other questions for Leroy or anything you want to expound upon?

Carlos:

No, Leroy, I don't have any other additional questions. I mean, thank you for your time. I know you've been a great client. so, we always appreciate your feedback. So, thank you very much.

Leroy:

We appreciate all of you. The entire team. Tell everybody I said thank you.