The Department of Public Safety began using a new sports-utility vehicle last week as its command vehicle.

The 1999 Ford Expedition is a rental unit from Transportation Services, as are the rest of the vehicles in the DPS fleet, said Loras Jaeger, director of DPS.

Jaeger said the Expedition was added to the fleet to satisfy state requirements for having a larger vehicle to haul emergency equipment.

“The Expedition is a little bigger vehicle than the Jeep we were using,” he said. “We’ll use this one as a command vehicle to haul more emergency equipment, such as our defibrillator.”

The Jeep, which will be sold at auction later this month to make room for the Expedition, was often unmarked, Jaeger said. The Expedition will be marked clearly and used as a command vehicle, he said.

“We have magnetic signs that we could put on the Jeep for certain occasions,” he said, “but the new vehicle has permanent markings.”

Once the Jeep is gone, the department still will have two unmarked cars.

The Expedition also will be an asset to DPS during extreme weather conditions because it is equipped with four-wheel drive, Jaeger said.

“It’ll be nice to have a little larger vehicle with four-wheel drive for weather extremes, such as floods and severe snow storms,” he said.

During regular use, the Expedition will be driven by street lieutenants, Jaeger said.

David Strom, director of Transportation Services, said the Expedition was chosen because it met all of DPS’s needs.

“They needed a vehicle to use as a command vehicle, and they also needed a four-wheel drive vehicle to replace the Jeep,” he said.

Although many vehicles could have met the department’s needs, Strom said the Expedition was the most cost efficient.

“Because of the way the state buys vehicles, we look at the long term,” he said. “We got the vehicle that will be the cheapest over the life of the vehicle.”

Strom said Transportation Services, combined with the Iowa Department of Transportation and other state organizations, takes into account gas mileage, resale value and many other factors when selecting vehicles.