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| FCC awarded street cleaning contract in Ourense, Spain Ourense City Government has awarded a contract for street cleaning and municipal waste collection and transport to a joint venture comprised of Spanish construction and services group FCC and two other companies; the ten-year contract may be extended by two years and is worth around 120 million euro. FCC will spend more than 10 million euro on equipment, quality control measures and communications. The equipment and services will be adapted to the characteristics of Ourense. The vehicles will be specially-designed for greater carrying capacity and waste collection performance without sacrificing manoeuvrability, with the lowest possible cost, fuel consumption and noise and pollutant emissions, in line with the concept of clean technology. They will equipped with leading-edge quality and safety features and will comply with Euro IV and Euro V standards. According to needs, vehicles will be powered by ecological fuels (biodiesel, electricity, hybrids) and diesel/gasoline. Street washers will be fitted with a novel water optimisation system which regulates the water flow and pressure as a function of vehicle speed. This will greatly enhance washing efficiency while reducing water consumption considerably. Additionally, data capture systems will provide reports and details on the street washers' movement. The facilities will be comprised of central and ancillary depots, a main office, ancillary premises, a customer service office and an ecological classroom. The central depot will have a system to treat water from cleaning vehicles and skips; an recharging station for electric vehicles; a biodiesel pump; a solar thermal energy installation for the production of sanitary hot water, and other environmentally-friendly equipment. The contract also includes the establishment of a call centre, a customer service office and websites dealing with the municipality and the cleaning and waste management services. FCC has designed an innovative control system based on a real-time geographical information system. Vehicles will be fitted with GPS/GPRS, on-board computer and mobile communications with the capacity to send and receive alerts and video, locate vehicles and skips, relay vehicle identification data and provide two-way communications between area supervisors and workers. FCC will use side-loading trucks to collect waste in the city centre and rear-loading trucks in rural, peri-urban and industrial areas and other parts of the centre where side-loading is not an option. Side-loading trucks will be used to collect source separated waste throughout the municipality. The fleet will include vehicles with dual side steering wheels to ensure complete coverage and maximum manoeuvrability. The contract includes collection of industrial glass and paper waste and the placement and removal of paper/cardboard and glass skips in certain areas of the city centre. Waste collection vehicles will be fitted with equipment to identify and weigh skips. write your comments about the article :: © 2009 Construction News :: home page |