Fort Wayne, February 4 - The city is done installing more than 75,000 new water meters at homes and businesses so that usage can be determined by computers in passing vehicles.
Work on the $11 million project began in January 2003, and its completion allows the city's water utility to cut most of its workers who had gone house-to-house reading meters.
The new meters work by transmitting information to a computer used by utility workers as they drive nearby. The remote reading equipment is 99.9 percent accurate, city officials said, so bills will no longer have to be estimated.
Greg Meszaros, the city's public works and utilities director, said Thursday that customers have reacted favorably to the system and that it is "well protected" from potential computer hackers.
In the past, up to 22 meter readers would walk through a neighborhood, reading meters and punching the numbers into a handheld device. It now takes only two readers to do the same job.
Even though the city now needs fewer meter readers, Meszaros said no workers were laid off. He said some readers retired, some found new jobs and other were transferred.
(Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
