November 2022
How digital waste management technology connects council services
Councils and waste collection companies can achieve digital transformation in their waste service through seamless integration with Routeware Webaspx connected Digital Waste Management Solutions to achieve their operational, financial and sustainability goals.
- Optimised Routes For Maximum Efficiency
Optimisation software begins the end-to-end digital transformation opportunity within a waste service by providing a digital solution to plan and balance customised workflows, indicating optimum routes for the collection crew, ensuring more efficient rounds. This is achieved by almost instantaneous analysis and evaluation of service scenarios to establish the resource required to accurately plan to reduce costs and service issues.
- Improved Waste Service Delivery With In-Cab Technology
In-Cab technology links the refuse collection crew to all parts of the council to help improve its waste and recycling collection service for residents, cut paperwork and drive performance.
The In-Cab system replaces paper beat sheets with digital touch screen tablets including planned routes, meaning the day starts for the crew on arrival, with updated information automated and immediately available.
The In-Cab device allows the collection crews to record real time information on any issues with collections via digital tablets within the refuse vehicle. This is used to log and relay issues instantaneously about bins across affected council departments. This includes bins which have not been put out for collection and damaged bins reported immediately back to the customer service team as they carry out their daily rounds. Issues can then be resolved quickly and efficiently if a call or complaint is received. This in turn creates a more efficient service, so when residents have a query or complaint, the information on the issue is more readily available and response times for enquiries will improve significantly.
The new technology also provides collection crews with information on specific elements of the council’s collection service such as assisted collections and garden waste subscriptions.
- Waste Collection Back-Office Automation Delivers Efficiency
Digital automation in the back office reduces manual processes, reduces paperwork and costly calls, and provides a consistent framework for getting work done accurately. This means digitising tasks and paper-based processes, and designing systems to manage information more efficiently, with greatest efficiencies coming from a fully integrated end-to-end connected waste management solution.
Middlesbrough Council have been using digital waste management technology successfully since 2020.
Philip Shaw, Waste Services Manager, said, “Digital Depot waste management solution and In-Cab technology work brilliantly together so that our residents and local businesses see improvements in the service they receive, with issues being reported and resolved quickly through real time data. This has led to a significant improvement in response times as well as a reduction in carbon emissions resulting from the additional mileage travelled to deal with reports of missed bins.”
- Digital Recycling Communications For Residents
New technology is now in operation to alert residents, via a calendar app and website integration, to make sure their bins and boxes are out for collection on their scheduled collections days. Innovative councils understand that new generations of consumers interact in a different way. They form communities that collaborate, interact online and expect services to be available to them anywhere and at any time.
Alongside this, to encourage recycling education and empower residents to recycle right, there are now digital tools to tell them what to do with their waste, reducing contaminated waste, costs and calls to customer services when a bin is not emptied.
Communications Teams can use the data about what items are searched for by residents, and recorded on the digital recycling tools, to plan and implement relevant, timely campaigns to change recycling behaviour.