City management is a continuous process of proactive maintenance. While cities offer the convenience of automated transportation, smart street lights, and responsive municipal services, local government field crews are tasked with the less glamorous responsibilities in all weather conditions, whether clearing storm drains and urban canopies or keeping transit routes and power grids operating efficiently.
For decades, public works agencies have been constrained by consumer-grade technology. Commercial laptops and tablets can’t stand up to the rigors of municipal fieldwork. Display technology bleeds in direct sunlight, batteries die in freezing temperatures, and sensitive internal components fail when exposed to harsh conditions like utility trenches or rain.
For smart cities that demand responsive municipal services, downtime is no longer an acceptable cost of doing business. Municipalities are realizing that digital transformation starts from the outside in and rely on purpose-engineered rugged tablets designed specifically for the demands of modern urban maintenance.
- IP65 & MIL-STD-810H – Durable for the rigors of municipal fieldwork:
Rugged tablets engineered with IP65 and MIL-STD-810H certifications provide city crews with enhanced durability for the harsh conditions of the maintenance field. This level of protection ensures reliable performance throughout the workday regardless of the elements or accidental bumps and spills.
- HOT-SWAPPABLE- 24/7 field uptime:
Hot-swappable battery packs ensure field crews remain connected at all times without having to power down for battery changes in the middle of a work shift.
- 1000 NITS- superior sunlight readability:
Bright 1000-nit touchscreens ensure the tablet display remains visible in direct sunlight. This high-brightness display technology maintains maximum contrast for enhanced sunlight readability, allowing for easier data entry for municipal crews.
Preventing urban floods: Clearing drains and stormwater systems and preventing urban floods
When seasonal storms roll through town, they can quickly overwhelm municipal drainage systems. Obstructed storm drains, silt, and culvert blockages can cause major thoroughfares to quickly turn into raging torrents. Field inspectors tasked with checking and clearing these underground thoroughfares of leaves, silt, and garbage need instant access to asset maps, maintenance histories, and GIS mapping tools.
Rugged tablets feature an IP65 design and fanless magnesium-aluminum casings to resist moisture, mud, and debris. Inspectors can instantly log blockages and submit images using 4G/5G connectivity so that public works dispatch can quickly send cleaning crews to prevent city streets from turning into whitewater rapids.
Preserving urban canopies: Ensuring tree trimming safety
Urban trees provide a natural air purification system and aesthetic beauty to a city’s landscape until high winds or stormy weather turn overhanging branches into potential safety hazards. Large branches snap power lines and can create roadblocks to evacuation or emergency services. Municipal arborists and forestry crews need to conduct regular inspections and trimming of urban canopies.
This line of work can be unforgiving when crews spend extended periods of time climbing or descending trees. Sunlight-readable touchscreens (up to 1000 nits) ensure that maintenance crews can easily view digital tree inventory maps even in bright daylight. Plus, the glove-ready touchscreens allow crews to keep their winter work gloves on while entering maintenance data.
Winter readiness: Preparing for roads and salting operations
Winter weather can quickly challenge the preparedness of any municipality. Roads cycle between frozen and thawing states, which can create precarious driving conditions. It takes a coordinated fleet of salt trucks and plows to manage hundreds of miles of infrastructure. Coordinating this level of operation demands that drivers and operators stay connected at all times.
Commercial lithium batteries lose their charge quickly in subzero temperatures and can leave crews without power in frigid temperatures. Mobile rugged tablets solve this problem with hot-swappable battery packs that allow crews to continue working without shutting down the device to replace depleted batteries. Salt truck operators can stay connected to optimized salting routes using embedded high-accuracy GPS receivers while reporting frozen road conditions back to dispatch to optimize salt usage.
Safeguarding the lifeline: Energy grid checks, utility maintenance, and inspections
Electricity is the circulatory system of a smart city. Failure of a single component like a substation transformer can affect traffic signals, hospitals, and municipal pumping stations. Technicians tasked with routine grid checks or isolating faulty components need instant access to schematics and diagnostic tools in the field.
Precision-engineered rugged tablets use high-performance, energy-efficient processors and embed powerful data capture tools like optional barcode, RFID, and smartcard readers in compact, rugged form factors. Technicians can inspect transformer assets and sign off on safety audits directly from the handheld tablet. Our computing systems are precision engineered from the circuit board up for mission-critical applications so operators know they won’t experience sudden system failures during high-voltage operations.
Built on collaboration: Why purpose-engineered outperforms off-the-shelf
The secret to successful smart city deployments is purpose-engineered, field-ready, rugged tablets. DT Research partners directly with government agencies, military branches, and utility providers to identify pain points from years of field experience. We don’t merely take a commercial tablet and throw a heavy-duty rubber bumper on it, we design our rugged tablets specifically for the challenges of the worksite.
From military-standard ratings for reliable and secure municipal systems to secure CAC/smart card readers for restricted infrastructure access, our customizable configurations adapt to your operations.
Ready to transform your field operations? Learn how DT Research precision-engineered rugged tablets can elevate your municipal maintenance crews.