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‘Toy truck’ technology saves time and money

Weighing more than 15,000 lbs., King County’s new road maintenance trucks will never be mistaken for toys. But with their multi-use interchangeable bodies, the trucks may bring back memories of Tonkas and Transformers.

Two years ago, the King County Road Services Division began looking at ways to make the 50 big rigs in its heavy equipment fleet more versatile. The Road maintenance section owns dump trucks, water tankers, de-icers, sanders, and other specialized equipment all mounted on similar truck chassis.

“A lot of it is used seasonally, so we had a variety of equipment sitting in the yard when we could have had those truck chassis working on other jobs,” said Bob Toppen, equipment supervisor at the county’s Renton maintenance shop.

Toppen and his crew experimented by modifying a dump truck assigned to Vashon Island so it could be morphed into an asphalt patcher when needed, by swapping out the body on the chassis. The alteration was a success, and maintenance supervisors saw the value of transforming the entire fleet.

So recently, when seven new trucks were needed to replace aging equipment, the county chose to order a model that can be a tanker, dumper, de-icer or sander depending on the need at hand.

"We're excited to be able to use this new design because it's going to save time and money," said King County Roads Maintenance Operations Manager Debbie Arima. "Since these trucks are more versatile, we'll have fewer single-use vehicles in our fleet which increases our overall efficiency. I also like that you can put an attachment on the truck body in 10 minutes and be on the road.”

Arima believes that in the future her section will have to buy fewer truck chassis because these new interchangeable models handle so many different duties. And, the more efficient fleet will be productive year-round.

“This is just one example of how Roads Maintenance is meeting King County’s overall goal to increase efficiency and reduce costs,” said Arima.
 

Updated:  June 21, 2005

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