The Water Division of the Gurnee Public Works Department uses an Automated Meter Reading System (AMRS) to more effectively read water meters.

The Village's Water Department uses the TouchRead Automated Meter Reading System. Meters are read using hand held devices capable of reading meters by touching a reading gun to a remote TouchPad at the meter location or by entering manual readings. Meter routes, notes, and readings are stored in the hand held Solid State Interrogators (SSIs) until transferred to a personal computer. The PC captures the readings from the SSIs, does some error detection and reporting, and formats the readings for billing purposes. The PC runs an application called RMMS to accomplish this and to download the routes into the SSIs prior to reading.

The communications program, Sensus Technologies RMMS version 4.1, runs on a 486/66 PC compatible computer located in the Water Lab at the Public Works Facility. RMMS performs the following functions:

Downloads meter reading data from Solid State Interrogators (SSIs).

Uploads route information to Solid State Interrogators.

Generates Route Management Reports from downloaded meter reading data.

Creates user defined reading files for transfer to the billing system.

Route information including, meter ID, low and high warning limits, account number, and meter type, is currently generated by the utility billing system and is passed to RMMS in order to prepare routes for the SSIs. Readings are passed back to the utility billing system along with meter id, date and time of read, reading type, account number, order read in route, notes, and other information.

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