Lexington, Kentucky, is a growing city. That means waste management is growing as well. With about 90,000 customers today, they’re growing by 2,700 carts per year across all commodities. Most residential growth is outside the city center, beyond the main road that encircles the city. And without route optimization, waste collection routes were becoming significantly off balance.

Eddie Dean, IT Manager for Lexington’s Division of Waste Management, relies on Routeware for route optimization over the city’s one million monthly service points.

“We’re currently running more than 90 routes for trash, recycling, and organics. But the workload was uneven. In the city center, drivers were picking up 600 carts on average, while those in the faster-growing outskirts, had up to 1,600 carts on their route,” says Dean. “This translated into varying shift lengths. While some drivers had six-hour days, others were working ten or more.”

The city was dealing with other complexities as well. Their fleet consists of multiple vehicle types: Rear loaders, minis, multi-packs, hop-on trucks, arm- and rear-loader trucks, and side-loaders. Vehicle type needed to be integrated into the plan, since some trucks work better in certain locations, and simply don’t fit into others — like tight alleyways. In addition to multi-cart residential pickup, routes include 8,000 rolling carts at business locations and 4,000 dumpsters that require specialized vehicles.

 “We have around a million service points, and growing. Without a routing system, we couldn’t do what we do.”

— Eddie Dean, IT Manager, Division of Waste Management

Lexington needed to get routes cleaned up, and this wasn’t a job for paper and pen.

Route optimization with EasyRoute

“It was time to completely re-work our routes. But the last time we did that it took 6 months for just one quadrant of the city – that was only 17 routes,” says Dean. “We needed a way to pull all 90 routes out of Routeware, optimize them, then implement.”

Using route optimization software from Routeware, the team in Lexington could optimize routes quickly and collaboratively. Dean brought supervisors and office managers into one room and plugged his computer into a large monitor. They were able to see all routes on the map, or focus on one at a time. The team could then balance routes by moving carts from one driver to another.

“With EasyRoute up on the big screen, supervisors could give direct input based on their experience on the ground,” says Dean. “They could say, ‘This is a tight area, we need a rear-loader and not a side loader.’”

With route optimization tools, in six months, the team accomplished a re-routing project that previously would have taken a year and a half – possibly even two years

Once the team had completed the optimization plan, they exported it and loaded it into Routeware where they ran tests until everyone was ready to sign off.

“I don’t need to use EasyRoute all the time,” says Dean. “But it’s incredibly valuable in the few weeks or months when I’m working on route optimization.”

Drivers get their say

Lexington uses in-cab tablets to connect drivers with the back office. This means drivers can report late set-outs and other concern in real time and receive information about missed carts or customer requests. In turn, supervisors have their eyes on the entire fleet throughout the day, and drivers can be dispatched to follow up on a customer request as soon as it’s reported, increasing service satisfaction as well as efficiency.

Driver participation is also important for refining routes and taking into account information a map could never show. “EasyRoute may plot a particular route, but when the driver takes a look at it, they know they’ll arrive at 7:30 a.m. – the same time as a school bus. We take that kind of feedback into consideration to refine each route,” says Dean.

With Lexington’s diverse population, different neighborhoods have different needs. The waste management team has found that affluent areas are more likely to recycle, for example. On the other hand, the areas around three big college campuses have a lot of single residents who may take a while to fill their recycling carts. These differences can be factored in because drivers have a way to provide their feedback.

And that’s not all

“We use EasyRoute for more than waste collection. The streets and roads department uses it, too, for snow plowing, salt spreading, leaf collection, and street sweeping,” says Dean. “Routeware gives them real-time tracking of every snow plow during weather events.”

Now Lexington is looking at more ways to leverage Routeware. They currently use a home-grown system to handle requests for ancillary collection – things like mattresses, tires, and bulky set-outs that are called in through the 311 system.

“From what I’ve seen, we use Routeware in some very unique applications, and more than what other customers do,” says Dean.

 “The new CIO requested that we put out an RFI for a new routing system. It confirmed that Routeware is still the best fit for Lexington. They offer more than any other competitors.”

– Eddie Dean, IT Manager, Division of Waste Management

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