The city government has invested more than $100,000 in GPS technology aimed at making trash pick-up and snow plowing easier and more efficient.

The technology won’t be installed in time to deal with the early spring snow, but the global positioning system devices — similar to those found in passenger cars and trucks — will help with efficient delivery of services, city Public Works Director Fred Stovall said Wednesday.

The typical city trash truck gets about two miles a gallon. Right now, drivers must manually design their routes and that takes time, Stovall said.

He went before the Dayton City Commission on Wednesday morning to explain his department’s plant to implement the new routing system. The GPS devices will help avoid the bumps that develop when substitute drivers have to take the steering wheel for regular drivers who have to miss work for whatever reason.

Once the GPS devices are installed, all drivers will need to do is to type in the name of a street that needs service.

“I think this is going to allow him to do it faster, to be more efficient, especially when we have employees who don’t show up for work and we need to split up the route,” Stovall said.

And efficiency is key in a city where weekly trash collection occurs at more than 67,000 residences, not to mention bi-weekly recycling collection, according to statistics maintained by the city of Dayton.

The city’s Division of Street Maintenance, responsible for snow and ice removal as well as fallen tree removal and similar kinds of work, handles 660 miles of bridges and roads throughout the city. There are 47 established routes in the city for plowing or treating snow and ice.

The GPS software alone is estimated to cost $50,000, according to Stovall, while the total cost of the installation and service package on 109 waste collection and street maintenance trucks is estimated to be more than $100,000.

Stovall said the system should be in place within two or three months.

“They’re going to install this in the software, lay the routes out for us,” Stovall said. “The more efficiently you can drive those routes, of course, we’re going to see some savings in our fuel.”