Quick Facts
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Bronson conducted a comprehensive review of all 21 bulk fuel sites supporting the City of Ottawa’s fleet program, which supplies fuel to more than 2,100 vehicles including Road Services, hydro, and police fleets.
- The engagement built directly on a prior Bronson scoping study completed in May 2017, which had confirmed the program’s overall net benefit but flagged specific sites and practices requiring deeper analysis.
- Bronson extracted and validated a three-year fuel supply and consumption dataset from the City’s M5 fleet management database, covering all 21 sites and the full supplied vehicle population.
- A quantitative cost-benefit model was developed to represent program economics at the individual site level, incorporating both direct cost and savings data and contingent risk exposure from capacity shortfalls during peak operations such as snow clearing.
- Stakeholder consultations were carried out with Road Services, Corporate Real Estate, transit, hydro, Ottawa Police Services, and other City departments to integrate operational intelligence into the quantitative findings.
- The study produced two coordinated deliverables: a 3-year optimization action plan covering near-term site recommendations and a long-term infrastructure forecast tied to fleet right-sizing, capital lifecycles, and alternative fuel policy.
Project Description
The City of Ottawa operates a bulk fuel program that sources and distributes fuel across a network of 21 sites to meet the daily fueling requirements of more than 2,100 municipal vehicles, encompassing Road Services equipment, Hydro Ottawa units, and Ottawa Police Services fleet vehicles. The program had not undergone a site-level comprehensive review since a post-amalgamation Fuel Standardization Study in 2003, with subsequent Office of the Auditor General reports in 2006 and 2007 generating recommendations that were addressed in the years following.
Bronson completed a preliminary scoping study in May 2017 to take stock of where the program stood relative to prior recommendations and to assess whether a fuller review was warranted. That study confirmed the outstanding recommendations from previous audits had been resolved and that the bulk fueling model continued to generate meaningful savings relative to retail fuel alternatives at the aggregate level. It also identified three unresolved questions that pointed toward a deeper engagement: the cost-benefit performance of individual sites had never been quantified at a granular level, certain locations had experienced documented capacity shortfalls during peak winter operations, and a concurrent fleet right-sizing initiative targeting completion in Q3 2018 introduced meaningful uncertainty about future demand across the network.
The City engaged Bronson to conduct the full-scope optimization study to address those gaps. The work covered all 21 sites, the complete supplied fleet, and a planning horizon that stretched from immediate operational improvements through to long-term capital and policy decisions.
Business Challenge
Producing site-level recommendations for a distributed fuel network serving a complex, multi-department municipal fleet required navigating a set of analytical, operational, and stakeholder challenges that compounded across the scale of the program.
The specific challenges Bronson addressed:
- Three years of fleet data requiring validation before use. The M5 database extract covered fuel supply by site, consumption by vehicle, home base locations, and seasonal demand patterns across 21 sites and over 2,100 vehicles. Before any modelling could begin, all fields required confirmation of definitions, identification of known limitations, and resolution of anomalies through direct review with Fleet Services staff.
- Vehicle types with materially different fueling profiles. Light-duty patrol vehicles, heavy snow clearing equipment, and utility fleet units each impose distinct fueling demands, respond differently to proximity constraints, and carry different risk profiles in the event of supply shortfalls. A generalized treatment across all vehicle types would have obscured the site-level dynamics that drove the most consequential recommendations.
- Contingent risk as a modelling requirement. Cost-benefit analysis of bulk fuel sites cannot be limited to normal operating conditions. The financial and operational consequences of insufficient tank inventory during high-demand events such as winter storm response had to be quantified explicitly and incorporated into site rankings, not treated as a qualitative footnote.
- Site-specific complications at multiple locations. Several sites presented individual complicating factors: a facility actively under consideration for divestment, a yard without physical space for bulk fueling infrastructure, documented tank capacity shortfalls at multiple locations, and congestion risk at a high-traffic operations yard. Each required distinct analytical treatment rather than a standardized assessment framework.
- A parallel right-sizing initiative changing the demand baseline. The City’s fleet right-sizing program, targeted for Q3 2018 completion, was expected to alter the composition and geographic distribution of fleet vehicles. Recommendations had to account for both the current demand picture and the near-term changes that would follow, without waiting for the right-sizing outcomes to become final before acting.
- Stakeholder communities with different priorities and planning horizons. Road Services, Corporate Real Estate, transit, Hydro Ottawa, Ottawa Police Services, and other City departments each interact with the fuel program differently and hold distinct forward-looking plans. Building analytical findings that reflected those differences, and securing the stakeholder confidence needed for recommendations to be acted upon, required structured engagement well beyond data analysis alone.
- Two planning horizons requiring coordinated but separate treatment. The engagement had to produce near-term site-specific guidance actionable within three years alongside a longer-horizon strategic forecast oriented around capital lifecycle milestones, alternative fuel policy, and fleet evolution. These outputs had to be coordinated without collapsing distinct planning timeframes into a single undifferentiated document.
The City needed an analytical foundation rigorous enough to justify decisions about which of its 21 sites to retain, invest in, modify, or close, against a program backdrop that was actively changing.
Our Solution
Bronson structured the engagement across seven sequential workstreams, moving from data acquisition through stakeholder consultation to integrated reporting:
1. Project Kickoff and Scope Confirmation
Bronson opened the engagement with a structured kickoff meeting with City representatives to lock in project scope, confirm data requirements, establish the reporting schedule, and sequence stakeholder consultations around other departmental commitments. This session set the operational foundation for all subsequent workstreams.
2. Data Gathering and Field Verification
Bronson extracted a three-year dataset from the City’s M5 fleet management system covering all 21 bulk fuel sites and the full supplied vehicle population. Every field in the extract was reviewed directly with Fleet Services staff to confirm definitions, flag known data limitations, and document and resolve anomalies before any analytical work proceeded.
3. Preliminary and Detailed Consumption Analysis
Bronson conducted a layered analysis of fuel supply and consumption patterns across sites, vehicle types, and home base locations. For vehicles without access to a compatible bulk fueling site, the operational cost of alternative fueling arrangements was calculated explicitly. The analysis also established the appropriate level of modelling granularity for different vehicle categories, separating types with similar fueling profiles from those requiring distinct treatment.
4. Quantitative Cost-Benefit Model Development
Bronson built a cost-benefit model that translated the validated fuel consumption data into a structured economic representation of each of the 21 bulk fuel sites. The model incorporated direct program costs and savings as well as contingent risk exposure, including the financial consequences of tank capacity shortfalls during high-demand winter operations. All inputs, variables, and assumptions were documented and reviewed with the project authority to ensure the model remained transparent and usable beyond the engagement.
5. Site Visits and Stakeholder Consultations
Bronson conducted site visits alongside fuel infrastructure inspectors to observe current site conditions, capacity status, maintenance requirements, and physical risk factors firsthand. Interview guides were developed and reviewed with the project authority before being administered with stakeholder groups across Road Services area managers, Corporate Real Estate, transit fleet staff, Hydro Ottawa, and Ottawa Police Services. Notes were reviewed and confirmed with participants before being incorporated into the analysis.
6. Cross-Referenced Findings Synthesis
Quantitative model outputs were systematically cross-referenced against qualitative stakeholder inputs. Where the data and consultation findings aligned, those points were treated as high-confidence basis for recommendations. Where they diverged, Bronson worked with the project authority to determine whether the data required recontextualization or whether stakeholder observations reflected incomplete information about program-wide conditions.
7. Integrated Short-Term and Long-Term Reporting
Bronson produced two coordinated draft reports and a consolidated final report. The short-term report covered the current state of all 21 sites, site-by-site cost-benefit rankings, and specific optimization recommendations for the three-year planning window. The long-term report built from the current-state analysis while incorporating the anticipated effects of fleet right-sizing, capital asset replacement milestones, changing client department plans, and alternative fuel policy on future program requirements. The final consolidated report merged both documents and incorporated feedback from draft review.
Key Deliverables
- Three-Year Fuel Site Optimization Action Plan – A site-ranked report documenting the operational and financial status of all 21 bulk fuel sites, with specific recommendations for optimization, modification, or closure within a three-year planning horizon.
- Long-Term Fuel Infrastructure Forecast – A forward-looking planning document addressing anticipated changes to the fuel program over an extended horizon, including the effects of fleet right-sizing, capital asset lifecycle milestones, alternative fuel policy, and evolving departmental requirements.
- Validated M5 Fuel Consumption Dataset – A verified, structured three-year extract from the City’s M5 fleet management system covering all 21 sites and 2,100-plus vehicles, with documented field definitions, known limitations, and resolved anomalies.
- Quantitative Site-Level Cost-Benefit Model – A configurable model translating validated fuel consumption data into cost and benefit profiles for each of the 21 sites, incorporating direct program economics and contingent risk exposure from capacity shortfall scenarios.
- Stakeholder Consultation Notes and Site Visit Findings – Confirmed records of consultation sessions across Road Services, Corporate Real Estate, transit, Hydro Ottawa, and Ottawa Police Services, alongside direct observations from fuel infrastructure site visits.
The Impact
- The engagement gave the City of Ottawa a site-level analytical platform that had not previously existed for its bulk fuel program, connecting decades of operational data to forward-looking planning for the first time.
- Individual cost-benefit profiles were established for all 21 bulk fuel sites, enabling direct comparison and prioritization across the full portfolio on a documented, reproducible basis.
- The three-year action plan gave the City a structured sequence of near-term decisions covering infrastructure modifications, tank capacity adjustments at constrained sites, and a documented analytical basis for sites under consideration for divestment or repurposing.
- Contingent risk quantification provided program managers with an explicit economic rationale for capacity investments at sites most exposed to shortfall conditions during snow clearing and other peak demand events, replacing qualitative concern with a costed assessment.
- Stakeholder consultations captured forward-looking departmental intelligence (including planned facility changes, fleet transition timelines, and operational constraints) that the quantitative data alone could not have surfaced, materially improving the accuracy of long-term forecast assumptions.
- The long-term forecast tied investment and divestment decisions to capital asset lifecycle milestones and fleet composition projections, giving the City a sequencing framework for program decisions over a planning horizon extending well beyond the immediate three-year window.
The engagement extended and deepened the work Bronson began with the 2017 scoping study, demonstrating the value of sustained analytical engagement with a program as operationally complex as a citywide bulk fuel network. Integrating three years of consumption data, a site-level cost-benefit model, cross-departmental stakeholder intelligence, and a dual-horizon planning structure gave the City of Ottawa a decision-making foundation proportionate to the scale and longevity of the program it supports.
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