Cooper Municipal Services
Cooper Municipal Services was founded in 1986 by Bob Cooper. Bob established the company after seeing the need for an independent service provider, specialising in the repair of refuse collection vehicles. In 2002, due to increased vehicle repairs and customer demands, Cooper Hire was established. Initially this was to supply courtesy vehicles to local customers.
The increased demand for hire vehicles soon outweighed the demand for courtesy vehicles and this triggered a rapid expansion of the company. The key to Coopers success is their professional reliable service, dedication to the management of solutions backed by over twenty years of experience, and expertise and knowledge of the waste collection industry.
Today the Cooper Group of companies focuses on waste vehicle management, kerbside recycling, refuse collection vehicle rental hire and waste disposal and provides services to a number of West Midlands Councils, including Birmingham, Wolverhampton and Dudley.
The Cooper Group first approached CMS SupaTrak to provide a vehicle tracking solution in 2007. With a mixed fleet of over 70 vehicles, ranging from municipal vehicles costing in excess of £120,000, to cars and small vans, Cooper Group needed a reliable way to protect their assets and have total visibility of their entire fleet at all times. In the time that the solution has been installed, SupaTrak has helped Cooper Group to become more accountable for their fleet.
Director, Sandra Cooper explains that "we are responsible for all these vehicles. If a query is raised by a customer or there is any uncertainty about the whereabouts of a particular vehicle, SupaTrak can immediately provide answers and resolve any disputes."
"SupaTrak can immediately provide answers and resolve any disputes"
Another key benefit that Cooper Group has experienced with SupaTrak is its flexibility to meet their bespoke needs. One of Cooper Group's customers, Birmingham City Council, who are also customers of CMS SupaTrak, wanted to be able to access the SupaTrak system to view the vehicles that they have on hire from Cooper Group.
After being granted access by Cooper Group, CMS SupaTrak created a separate map which only displays the vehicles which they have on hire. Consequently, Birmingham City Council is able to use SupaTrak to view both their own and hired vehicles and Cooper Group have met and exceeded their customer's requirements.
"this new service has been met with great approval by new and existing customers"
Cooper Group has recently launched a new service to their customers, which has been made possible through their use of SupaTrak. They are offering a pay as you go hire service, in which customers are billed for actual vehicle usage instead of for the total vehicle hire period. Using SupaTrak, Cooper Group can monitor when a vehicle has been used and bill their customers accordingly.
For example, if the vehicle is hired for 7 days, but it is only used for 3, the customer is only billed for the 3 days. Sandra Cooper explains that "this new service has been met with great approval by new and existing customers, especially considering the current economic climate, where businesses are trying to cut costs. With this new service, our customers only pay for what they use."
SupaTrak provides Cooper Group with 60 second updates as standard and access to the mapping system from any computer with an internet connection. Additional solutions available include SupaTrak Mobile, which gives access to the SupaTrak account via a PDA, whilst on the move and JobTrak, which provides real time job scheduling and allocation.
