County uses GIS to organize waste collection
The Fairfax County (Va.) Solid Waste Collection and Recycling Department has worked with the county GIS Department to plan more efficient collection routes for its drivers. The new routes are computer-generated based on GIS data, and they are intended to improve customer service and reduce collection costs.
Prior to working with the GIS Department, the county’s Solid Waste Department ran 16 daily routes to collect garbage and yard waste from 38,000 homes weekly. The truck drivers were assigned an equal number of stops, but the quantity of garbage and yard waste collected at each stop varied, generating complaints from the crews that the workload was unfair.
Drivers also complained that their responsibilities were inflexible; the routes were not changed if new homes were added to collection areas. Additionally, the department did not have a system to calculate the optimal travel path for the collection areas. The drivers determined their own courses for collecting garbage on their routes, and the route maps were hand-drawn.
The Solid Waste Department approached the GIS Department for help in organizing more efficient and balanced routes. The team used software from Route-Smart Technologies, Columbia, Md., to create new routes for the drivers. The software allowed the team to design routes based on information specific to the county’s solid waste operations, such as whether the trucks can service both sides of the street and the amount of time it takes to handle particular stops.
The software eliminated six superfluous routes for the collection crews and created time-balanced maps for the remainder. The Solid Waste Department will be able to reorganize routes to accommodate new home construction or seasonal fluctuations in yard waste volume.
The GIS staff trained the Solid Waste staff to use the software before officially implementing the computerized routing system in January. The county expects to save up to $200,000 per year in collection costs by using the computer-generated routes.
