More for your money

Every single law enforcement agency in North America shares at least one common challenge: budget shortfalls. I don’t care how big your agency is or how generous your governing council is at budget time, you are still going to reach a point (due to unavoidable circumstances sometimes) where your budget gets tight. If you could pad approximately 10 percent of one line item in your budget, would you? I know, 10 percent of a small line item isn’t a big deal—10 percent of a big line item though…

Enter DERIVE. DERIVE Efficiency is a product and service combination that empowers fuel savings along with multiple other benefits. I first saw them at a public safety exposition and learned about their product. Being a 30+ year law enforcement veteran and therefore pretty cynical, I wanted to see field test results before “buying in.” The benefits of saving fuel costs are obvious, but before I get into DERIVE and how it works, I’d like to lay out a hypothetical situation just to illustrate how significant those savings can get. Mind you, fuel savings is only one benefit of the DERIVE Efficiency system, but it’s likely the one that most budget committees will pay attention to and the easiest item to leverage to an agency’s benefit if it can be improved.

Let’s take a look at a small agency with five full time law enforcement officers with one police car each. For ease of calculations we’re going to assume that each officer drives 50 miles each shift or 250 miles per week. That means the fleet of five cruisers is driven a combined minimum total of 1,250 miles.

Depending on the patrol vehicle in question the average mileage could be anywhere from 10 miles per gallon to 14 miles per gallon, but it’s rare to see anything higher than that. Using the middle of that spread, 12 miles per gallon, the 1,250 miles of patrol eats up 104 gallons of gas; that’s per week. It equals out to 5,408 gallons of gas per year. At roughly $2 per gallon (I know it’s higher or lower depending on where you are and the season) that equates to $10,816 worth of fuel per year. Remember two things: that’s a five-person police department and the cars are only being used by each individual officer; no pool cars; no cars being driven 24/7, etc. Even if your agency only saved 10 percent of that cost it would still equal a savings of almost $1,100.

The cool part about this hypothetical is that it’s so easy to scale it. From five officers change it to 50. Add a zero to each number: 250 miles per week for 50 officers changes to 12,500 miles per week in the fleet. That changes 104 gallons of gas per week to 1,042 gallons per week or 54,184 gallons per year. Now consider that at $2 per gallon and all of a sudden the annual cost is approaching $110,000. How would your agency like to save 10 percent of that? $11,000 more in your budget—or redirected in your budget—could have a serious impact. Imagine now if your agency is 500 sworn.

The DERIVE Efficiency product is (essentially) an optimized powertrain software that is capable of providing several benefits. Those benefits include:

• Limiting the maximum speed of a vehicle
• Reducing the idle RPM levels
• Adjusting transmission shift points for maximum efficiency, and
• Optimizing torque and throttle

The lower three items on that list all contribute to increased fuel efficiency and, therefore, reduced fuel cost. The first item, limiting maximum speed of the vehicle, may be something many will debate the value or cost of. It might be a good thing but it also might cost you lost criminals in vehicle pursuits. I’m sure the lawyers would argue about limiting liability and increased defensibility in court cases where patrol vehicle accidents are concerned. Ultimately, it would be up to your agency to determine what benefits it wants to enjoy.

Now, as I said earlier, I’m not a person who just believes what he’s told. I wanted to either perform my own field testing or see the results from an agency that had field tested the product. It helps to note that DERIVE Efficiency’s brochure lists among its customers / clients DISH Television, Pepsi, Sears, Union Pacific and others. Those of you who have worked in or with the commercial industries know that they don’t spend money on anything that doesn’t provide them a return on investment. The fact that DERIVE Efficiency had those companies as clients got my attention and made me less skeptical. Seeing the report from the North Carolina State University reduced my skepticism more.

In this report, shared via DERIVE, four vehicles were tested and the overall results revealed an average increase of fuel efficiency equal to eight percent, and showed an overall reduction in air emissions. Not only did the test show improved fuel efficiency, but it also revealed that the DERIVE Efficiency-tuned test vehicles produced less exhaust toxins as well. Those reduced levels included:

• Four percent reduction in nitrogen oxides
• 16 percent reduction in carbon monoxide
• Six percent reduction in carbon dioxide

Talk about supporting your argument for acquisition to your governing council. “Yes, sir (or ma’am), Mr. Council member. There is a cost to purchasing and incorporating this product but the results are measurable savings and a reduced impact on the environment.” That’s two home runs in a single sentence when it comes to budget arguments (in my experience).

DERIVE Efficiency then shared the results of a test they did with the City of Coral Springs. They tested a Ford Interceptor Utility used for K9 services (which means it’s left running a lot when the officer is on duty) and an Interceptor sedan. The testing on both included confirmation tests for base mileage and then fuel efficiency at idle followed by a test period re-measuring both.

For the Ford Interceptor Utility K9, the measured improvement from stock to tuned by the DERIVE Efficiency system was roughly a 13 percent increase in fuel efficiency while driven (miles per gallon) and an approximate eight percent fuel efficiency increase while sitting at idle. Overall, during the test period, the tuned fuel efficiency showed an increase of 11.4 percent. The test vehicle had an average annual use of 28,924 miles and the per gallon gas price used during testing was $2.25 per gallon. At an untuned fuel efficiency of eight mpg, that made regular fuel cost for the year $8,134.88. With the system, fuel efficiency 12.8 percent better, that cost would be lowered to $7,456 netting a savings of $678.88. Those aren’t hypothetical numbers but actual test results.

For the Ford Interceptor sedan, the measured improvement was roughly a seven percent increase in fuel efficiency while driven and an approximate nine percent fuel efficiency increase while sitting at idle. Overall, during the test period fuel efficiency showed an increase of 6.5 percent. Doing all the same math for the sedan test vehicle that we did above for the Utility, and using the base versus improved mileage numbers from the Coral Springs test, the annual savings in fuel cost for that single vehicle would be $309.90.

Overall, I have to admit to being impressed with the program. The product use results in measurable savings and some of the DERIVE Efficiency payment plans guarantee you won’t lose money in the purchase process.