Blog: City Blog

Public Works Week: Arrival of First Wave of Major Fleet Replacements

by Nick Bradshaw
Deputy Director, Fleet Services |

City's new knucklebooms

City staff in front of four new knuckleboom arrivals.

The City took delivery this week of five medium-duty trucks, five snow plows and five knuckleboom loaders.

This is the first wave of an order that over the next few months will see a total of 22 new medium-duty trucks, 16 snow plows and 16 knuckleboom loaders added to the City’s Fleet.

The vehicles are replacing their older counterparts. It is not an overstatement to say that this equipment order will more significantly impact the City’s capability to deliver services to our neighborhoods than any other equipment purchase made this decade.

The new units will directly impact the City’s brush collection and snow removal operations. The new trucks will also be used as platforms for the City’s leaf collection and pothole patching operations in each of the Public Service Department’s six service areas.

The new trucks, knucklebooms and plows, are superior to their predecessors in a myriad of ways. These design changes are meant to maximize operational effectiveness and reduce maintenance costs, thereby providing better service to customers.

This delivery also represents the culmination of two years of intense research, study and work by Fleet Services as well as an unprecedented level of cooperation and collaboration between the Fleet and Public Service departments in the equipment specification writing process.

This process involved meetings with public works leaders from other cities in addition to extensive research and consultation with equipment design engineers, manufacturers, and vendors.

Following the conclusion of the bid process, Fleet personnel continued to devote countless hours providing direction and feedback to design engineers and equipment manufacturers. The result is a Fleet of equipment unlike any other in the world that is uniquely suited to meet Knoxville’s needs.

Posted by On 25 May, 2018 at 11:24 PM