Toronto still struggling to track snow plows with GPS, auditor finds

The city's plan to use GPS and field checks to track the work of snow-clearing contractors is still ineffective, Toronto's auditor general found in a new report.

The key finding is part of a follow-up review of the city's snow-clearing service, which has been plagued with questions about effectiveness and efficiency, especially after it inked a controversial deal in 2021. 

Those questions grew louder after Torontonians filed tens of thousands of complaints to 311 in the wake of back-to-back-to-back storms that paralyzed streets this winter. 

Mayor Olivia Chow, who called last winter's storm response a "failure," is looking forward to reviewing the auditor's latest report, her office said in an emailed statement.

"Ultimately, Torontonians expect snow to be cleared — we are going to get it fixed so this doesn't happen again," said Zeus Eden, Chow's press secretary.

Auditor Tara Anderson first looked at snow clearing with a damning probe of the service in 2023, which showed the contractors struggled to get equipment on time and hire enough staff. In this follow-up, she found city staff still haven't implemented nine recommendations her office made, despite officials claiming all 30 had been completed.

The GPS matter is especially key, her report notes, because it's the primary way the city tracks what work is getting done during a storm and whether it should be applying penalties to the contractors for not getting their plows out on time.

"Ongoing GPS dashboard reliability issues hinder the Division's ability to monitor contractor performance," Anderson said in one document.

Further, she said, "significant effort is spent manually comparing expected routes with GPS information, which is labour-intensive and time consuming."

The auditor's review also shows, for the first time, how much money the city has sought from contractors stemming from performance issues. Anderson found staff are using an "inefficient, unsustainable, and unreliable method" to penalize the companies for non-compliance.

Councillors voted in March for a full review of how the city handles its winter operations, which Chow's office said should be released this month.

Councillors will first get a chance to ask the auditor questions about this report next Friday. 

CBC Toronto sent several questions to the transportation services division but did not receive answers by publication time. This story will be updated.

Some 70 per cent of snow-clearing in Toronto is handled by private companies. In 2021, the city inked a deal that saw two companies and their joint venture win the rights to handle almost all of that work, the only exceptions being the Willowdale area and the Gardiner Expressway and Don Valley Parkway.