London Borough of Sutton

Half a million in savings by moving to a two-shift system

The London Borough of Sutton is an urban unitary council located on the southern boundary of Greater London serving just over 78,000 households. The public receives a weekly residual waste, fortnightly recycling and fortnightly (opt-in) garden service.

The London Borough of Sutton successfully deployed our route optimisation technology to model an alternative two-shift system. The key aim was to make savings from increased vehicle utilisation. This required a major change to employment conditions for staff, extending the operating hours of the maintenance workshop whilst reducing the fleet size.

The new rounds provide households with the same service whilst reducing the number of vehicles from 21 to 11. Savings of £0.5M/yr have been achieved. In addition, the number of refuse crews has been reduced by one and this has been used to provide expanded capacity in the recycling rounds as recycling rates continue to increase.

“The software allowed us to robustly evaluate a number of service options and to deliver the two shift system with confidence. The new rounds have saved us £0.5M/yr and given us additional recycling capacity” 
Matt Clubb, Head of Waste Management and Fleet Services