Cycles & Routes (1)

Meter reading technology is one area where mobile communications are having an impact, and the modern CIS must take account of these changes. The old technology required a meter reader to “walk the route”, physically inspecting every meter and noting down its data. This was sometines known as a “book”, as the reader entered the readings into the book he carried with him. This approach persists and every CIS must provide for its management, via routes (typically a route or book was the number of meters a single meter reader could visit in a single day) and cycles, or collections of routes, which may be the work aggregated into a week, month or other period's readings for an entire billing cycle. There is, however, no need to equate the reading cycle to the billing cycle, although many utilities do, and a well-designed billing system should provide for different values to co-exist for each.