City Vehicles Policy

Employees use City of Greater Sudbury vehicles for various purposes allowing them flexibility in the performance of work to provide services throughout the City’s geographical boundaries. In some cases, this work requires ready access to a City vehicle or tools and employees may be permitted custodial use of City vehicle, use of a City pool vehicle or use of their personal vehicle to be ready to respond.

This policy applies to all City of Greater Sudbury employees. It does not apply to those who receive a vehicle allowance. The complete Employee Use of City of Greater Sudbury Vehicles Policy is available here as a scanned document.

Policy

City of Greater Sudbury employees are expected to attend work using their own personal means of transportation. However, in some circumstances, it is to the City’s benefit to provide the use of a City vehicle to an employee for business related purposes.

As a work tool, a City vehicle will be assigned on the basis of the following four criteria: frequency, urgency, scheduled standby and the requirement for tools or equipment contained in a City vehicle. The criteria are defined below:

  1. Frequency: The frequency of the requirement for a City of Greater Sudbury vehicle both inside and outside normal work hours. Frequency refers to both the number of occurrences of vehicle use and the amount of travel distance normally required by the role. Frequent use is defined as business use of greater than 10,000 kilometers annually.
  2. Urgency: The urgency of the requirement to attend at a worksite.
  3. Scheduled Standby: The regular assignment of an employee to scheduled standby duty as defined in this policy. Generally speaking, employees are named in a standby duty schedule, calendar, rotation, etc. (i.e. there is a regular schedule for standby and the employee is expected to perform it as part of their job, not an emergent, infrequent, periodic requirement).
  4. Tools or Equipment: The City of Greater Sudbury vehicle in question contains specialized tools or equipment that are required to respond to perform the work in question (e.g. emergency light packages, decals, signage, cones, measurement instruments, etc.)

General Managers must apply these criteria in assigning the appropriate type of City vehicle in consultation with the Fleet Services Section subject to the following policy directives:

When an employee frequently attends to City business outside their normal work hours and any criteria between 2 and 4 apply, they may be eligible for custodial vehicle use. The frequency threshold to buld a business case for custodial use of a City vehicle is 10,000 or more business kilometers annually.

When an employee is not frequently required to attend to City business outside their normal work hours they are permitted to use their personal vehicle or be assigned the use of a City pool vehicle, whichever is most cost effective and efficient to City operations.

Employees on scheduled standby may be eligible to take a pool vehicle home for their period of standby duty.

Rules for Use

  • A City of Greater Sudbury vehicle is to be driven by the employee only.
  • If a vehicle is taken home, en route from work to home (or vice versa), this policy allows the employee to stop off at retail outlets or recreational facilities. Alcohol is not permitted to be transported in City vehicles.
  • This policy does not allow employees to personal use of a City of Greater Sudbury vehicle to transport family members or pets in the vehicle unless they are en route from work to home (or vice versa).
  • Employees should not transport personal bulky, visible materials, such as building supplies, in the City of Greater Sudbury vehicle.
  • City of Greater Sudbury vehicles must remain within City geographical boundaries unless approved by the employee’s immediate supervisor for authorized business use.
  • City of Greater Sudbury vehicles must be maintained and cleaned at all times. It is the employee’s responsibility to make sure the vehicle is clean after each use. It is the responsibility of the driver to fuel the vehicle.
  • Employees must be in possession of a valid driver’s licence, appropriate to the vehicle they intend to operate, before driving any City vehicle as outlined in the employee handbook.
  • All driving and parking tickets issued to employees during the course of their employment are payable personally by the employee as outlined in the employee handbook.
  • An employee on standby must remain within the City’s geographic boundary/remain close enough to his/her geographic area of responsibility to respond within a reasonable time period to an emergent issue. Standby also requires that the employee abstain from all alcoholic beverages, etc., which would prevent the employee from safely being able to perform his/her duties when called out to work. Also, in accordance with the Outside Unit Collective Bargaining Agreement, transportation from an Outside Unit Employee’s residence to the trouble site and return will be provided when the employee is called out to work while on standby duty.
  • An employee on call will not be required to remain within the City’s geographical boundaries or abstain from alcoholic beverages (though moderation is always advocated by the City of Greater Sudbury). The employee must be able to be reached in order to obtain verbal direction on work related issues. The employee on call will not be provided with the City vehicle.