Public Works: Routing for Waste Collection, Street Sweeping, Winter Operations and Inspections

Via a single, integrated software environment that is continuously being updated with new features and functionality, RouteSmart meets your route planning needs comprehensively for:

• Residential and commercial recycling and waste collection routing
• Snowplow territory design
• Street sweeping optimization
• Utility meter reading
• Inspector work area management
• Leaf collection and other routing problems that require every street to be serviced
• Portable toilet service and delivery

RouteSmart solutions integrate seamlessly with ESRI’s ArcGIS family of products and can often use pre-existing GIS data to power the solution. RouteSmart Technologies continuously enhances our product line to maintain compatibility with all new releases of ESRI ArcGIS desktop software and NAVTEQ map data. We maintain official business partner status with both ESRI and NAVTEQ as well as other industry technology suppliers to insure your solution is up to date and able to use their latest releases and updates.

Unique features of the RouteSmart software solution which enable the package to be applied to the aforementioned types of routing problems include:

• Four unique methods to balance routes and cluster workloads including trade-offs between methods (e.g. time of the route vs. capacity of each route). Specify whether you want to balance routes based on time/length of day, a fixed number of personnel or vehicle assets available, a target volume parameter for each route such as number of homes serviced or tonnage of waste collected, or whether you want to manually seed the geographic locations of each route to keep drivers in the same area with which they are familiar.
• Sequencing stops and street block-faces in optimized travel order to minimize time or mileage through the route.
• Factor for time-of-service restrictions at each stop location. Restrict vehicles from servicing stops before, between or after certain times of day.
• All routing calculations performed with side-of-street, address-specific routing precision.
• Support for routing down alleys from which service is performed.
• Comprehensive support for restricting or penalizing all classes of turn movements at an intersection (left, right, straight and u-turn), variable travel speeds to account for physical restrictions and access characteristics of the road, and other travel restrictions such as eliminating non-productive travel through areas or along specific sections of road.
• Multiple volume fields for each stop to model mixed capacities (e.g. recycling volume vs. trash volume).
• Set spreader rates for sanding/gritting operations. Account for input rates for street sweeping operations based on curb-distance serviced.
• Multiple trips to intermediate facilities (e.g. disposal sites, salt dome) throughout the route including the ability for the software to select the best facility to visit.
• Create routes with boundaries that respect major streets and keep whole subdivisions/neighborhoods on the same route.
• Prioritize the order of collection/service between subdivisions, neighborhoods, or other like geographies. Uniquely prioritize the service order of select, individual stops or entire areas of a route to dictate the flow of the sequence through the route. This insures that customers on the route will always be serviced together or in the unique order they are required for service (e.g. service the downtown area first, then the suburban portion of the route).
• Specify maximum amount of time allowed between servicing one side of the street versus the other to minimize return service for same-side only route sequencing practices.
• Support for service day realignments (e.g. changing collection days for residential pick-up) and balancing of workloads with multiple collection or service frequencies (2x, 3x, 4x per week, etc.).
• Comprehensive sets of summary and detail reports and maps for each route showing service order sequence and travel directions. Maps detail travel paths within the route and can be set to various levels of zoom factors/scales for detailing the tour through the route (from route overview map to a map of 1 block-face!).
• RouteSmart Route Macro Language for automating routine routing tasks associated with importing and exporting data, running the solvers in batch-unattended fashion (great for managing on-demand routing processes such as bulky/white-goods collection!), and outputting reports and maps.

As you’ll realize, RouteSmart is the standard for route planning in the challenging realm of both municipal public works and private waste collection. So why not work directly with the authors of the software and not through a third-party reseller who “reps” solutions they do not own nor have influence over with respect to product direction? Contact RouteSmart Technologies today to discuss your route planning needs and how we can bring the solution to you!

Contact our industry expert directly:
Jessica Cearfoss
8850 Stanford Boulevard, Suite 3250
Columbia, MD 21045
800.977.7284 or 410.290.0226
jcearfoss@routesmart.com

Client Profiles
City of Charlotte, NC, Gets RouteSmart
RouteSmart Helps Sacramento Trash the Competition
The Drive for Perfection: City of San Diego Uses RouteSmart to Streamline Curbside Collections
RouteSmart Helps Waste Industries Collect Big Savings
Optimising Waste Collection Using OS MasterMap Integrated Transport Network Layer

Articles of Interest
Harrow District Council (UK) - RouteSmart delivering!
Cosla Excellence Awards 2011
Renfrewshire Council- Service re-routing for improved recycling
Hambleton and Richmondshire district councils share services and deliver savings of £850 000
Going Commercial - Recent advances in vehicles and operating systems
GIS Cleans Up LA’s Routing Operations
A Little Artificial Intelligence: Information systems can go far in helping managers make decisions that facilitate cost-effective operations.

PowerPoint Presentations
For further information, download the following presentations:

• City of Folsom - Smart Cart Recycling Program Implementation