“In our business, it’s not enough to be good. You have to be great.”

That’s according to Michael Shaw, director of public works for Kansas City, Missouri, reflecting on his department’s move to digital route optimization for waste and recycling collection. 

The imperative to achieve greatness is a defining characteristic for most waste and recycling haulers. The mandate isn’t limited to public operators, either. Private hauler Chris Antonacci, owner and operator of New York-based Crown Waste, echoes nearly the same words on the commercial side: “In this business, having the lowest price doesn’t always get you the customer. Winning an account often comes down to service quality.”

Most fleet operators acknowledge the pressure to do more with less. The good news is that next-generation cloud-based route optimization tools can help them do just that. SaaS technology can help fleet operators move away from analog-based methods for routing, dispatching, sequencing and fleet maintenance and toward digitally automated workflows. 

Consider this: 

The city of Concord, North Carolina, used route optimization to shift collections from a five-day schedule to a four-day schedule, better synchronizing drivers’ schedules, reducing overtime and increasing route efficiency. 

Result: The city counts a cascade of benefits, including savings of over $270,000 per year in reduced go-backs, a 95% satisfaction rating among residents, and surging recycling compliance that has so far spared the landfill of 3,000 tons of waste annually.

Omaha, Nebraska-based Hillside Solutions, a private hauler with 15 trash and recycling trucks, moved away from paper-based sequencing and routing in 2018. 

Result: Residential route efficiency spiked 122% from 2019 to 2023, and reduced go-backs now save the company approximately $850,000 per year.

The city of El Paso, Texas, adopted route optimization in 2023 for its fleet of 10 street sweepers. 

Result: The number of sweeper passes on the street jumped 28% from an average of 96 passes to 122 while reducing route mileage by 8%—saving the city an estimated $85,170 per year in operating expenses.

Dozens of fleet operators have documented similar improvements across the country. Yet, for all the buzz and affirmation, the Solid Waste Association of North America observes that the industry is still “in the early phase of development with respect to digital transformation.” 

For practitioners long accustomed to managing fleet services with spreadsheets, whiteboards and paper maps, a measured pace is understandable. Altering the status quo, no matter how justified it may be, requires change. Yet, as scores of fleet operators will attest, the transition process is surprisingly fast and easy, with gains in dispatching, routing, route sequencing, driver approval, vehicle uptime and end-user satisfaction more than offsetting transition worries.

Driver acceptance

Take the experience of Jake Jansen, resource management supervisor for the City of Dubuque, Iowa. He feared the city’s move to a digital solution would leave a portion of his older workforce behind. “Our crew had been relying on a paper routing system for over 20 years. I was worried asking them to use smartphones wouldn’t go over well,” Jansen recalls. But younger drivers embraced the technology immediately and “acted like internal salespeople to older drivers,” he says.

Driver delight shouldn’t be surprising. For example, digitized routes have allowed Denver’s Solid Waste Management Division to transition drivers from paper-based maps and manual routing to digital route sheets, giving managers real-time insights into route progress, service completion and any issues at the curb. In case of breakdowns, drivers can more easily assist with each other’s routes. And they can receive updates on their own routes in real time. 

As one driver in Memphis explains, “It allows us to know where we left off—and where we need to go next.”

Customer delight

Of course, the ultimate beneficiaries are households and commercial customers reliant on waste and recycling collection. Robin Barham, solid waste director for Concord, North Carolina, observes after moving collections in-house with Rubicon: “In our first month of [digital route optimization], we had a better record among our customers than our contractor had in each of the previous six months.” 

The department’s 95% satisfaction rate ranks the community 30% higher than the national average, a win-win for taxpayers and city officials—and the environment, too.

Sustainable performance

Digital enablement allows fleet authorities to compress route times and mileage, saving on fuel costs and vehicle wear and tear. 

• In Denton, Texas, officials estimate annual vehicle emission reductions of 131 tons of CO2. 
• City fleet operators in El Paso use 4,173 fewer gallons of fuel each year, the equivalent of 37 metric tons of CO2. 
• In Harrisonburg, Virginia, the gains are similar: Reduced mileage from route optimization saves 230,000 pounds of CO2 each year.