Glossary

The non-emergency phone and digital service residents use to report issues and request city services, including waste-related requests.

A personalized schedule showing residents their pickup days for each waste stream, with reminders and service change alerts.

Trash and recycling generated by businesses, institutions, and multifamily properties, typically serviced with larger containers on negotiated schedules.

A cart-level inspection at the point of collection, checking set-outs for contamination, participation, and program compliance.

A routing approach built for high-stop-count collection work, where trucks service hundreds of closely spaced stops in sequence.

The ability to re-sequence stops and reassign work in real time, adjusting routes during the collection day as conditions change.

Balancing work across an entire fleet of trucks and crews to serve all customers with the fewest vehicles, miles, and hours.

The performance record of a collection fleet: trip times, miles driven, weights disposed, inspections, faults, and productivity per vehicle and route.

Real-time GPS monitoring of every collection vehicle, showing location, route progress, and status on a live operational map.

A return trip a waste collection truck makes to service a stop that was missed, disputed, or not completed on the first pass.

Disposing of waste in unauthorized locations like vacant lots, alleys, and roadsides instead of using legal disposal options.

The hardware and software inside a collection vehicle, including tablets, on-board computers, and cameras, that digitizes the driver’s workday.

Material generated by healthcare activities, including sharps, contaminated items, and pharmaceuticals, requiring specialized collection, tracking, and disposal.

The everyday trash and recycling generated by households, businesses, and institutions within a community, managed by a city or its contracted haulers.

The trash, recycling, and organics a city is responsible for collecting from its residents, whether with city crews or contractors.

Biodegradable material such as food scraps, yard trimmings, and food-soiled paper, collected separately for composting or other processing.

Digital route sheets delivered to drivers on in-cab devices, replacing printed manifests with real-time, updatable stop lists.

Counting and recording each pass a plow or sweeper makes on a street segment, measuring completion against the required passes.

The assigned street coverage plans for individual plow trucks, defining the segments, sequence, and passes each vehicle owns.

A privately owned waste collection company serving residential, commercial, or industrial customers, either under contract or in open market competition.

Non-recyclable material placed in recycling containers, degrading the stream’s quality and raising processing costs.

How a community connects residents to its waste programs through digital tools, communication, and self-service options.

When one driver takes over part of another driver’s route, with stops transferring digitally so nothing is missed or duplicated.

Distributing collection work evenly across trucks, drivers, and days so every route is achievable and no shift runs long.

The ongoing practice of designing, editing, monitoring, and maintaining collection routes using purpose-built software rather than paper and spreadsheets.

The process of designing collection routes that minimize miles, time, and cost while servicing every stop reliably and balancing driver workloads.

A tool for sequencing, balancing, and redesigning collection routes, modeling which trucks serve which stops on which days.

The periodic redistribution of stops across existing routes to restore efficiency after growth, service changes, or customer turnover.

Ordering the stops within a route for maximum efficiency, accounting for travel distance, turn restrictions, and service side.

Confirming that each scheduled stop was serviced, using GPS, sensors, photos, and timestamps recorded at the stop.

The municipal program of winter street response: plowing, salting, monitoring, and the management of routes, equipment, and records behind it.

Real-time GPS monitoring of plow fleets, showing which streets have been serviced, when, and by which vehicle.

The municipal operation of clearing snow and ice from streets, covering plowing, salting, and hauling accumulated snow away.

Predefined street sequences assigned to plow vehicles, organized by priority tier so critical streets clear first in a storm.

Any discarded solid material, including household trash, commercial garbage, yard debris, and bulky items, managed through collection, recycling, or disposal programs.

The day-to-day management of collection services: routes, drivers, dispatch, exceptions, and the data connecting them.

The scheduled mechanical cleaning of streets, removing debris and pollutants from curb lines using sweeper vehicles on planned routes.

GPS monitoring of street sweeping vehicles, recording which curb segments were swept, when, and on which cycle.

The planned segment sequences sweeper vehicles follow, covering curb lines on defined cycles across a street network.

Vehicle-generated data covering location, engine health, fuel use, and driving behavior, transmitted from collection trucks for fleet analysis.

On-board camera systems on collection vehicles that record the street, the hopper, and service events for evidence and safety.

Present and where diversion opportunities exist.

Invoicing customers for collection services, connecting recurring charges, extras, and fees to what happened in the field.

The scheduled pickup of trash, recycling, and organics from homes and businesses, performed by collection trucks running planned routes.

Coordinating trucks, drivers, routes, and service requests across the collection day, assigning work and resolving exceptions as they happen.

A company that collects and transports trash, recycling, and other waste streams from homes and businesses to disposal or processing facilities.

The business of collecting waste and transporting it from the point of generation to disposal, transfer, or processing facilities.

The process of collecting, transporting, processing, and disposing of waste materials, covering everything from curbside pickup to recycling and final disposal.

A digital platform for running collection operations, covering routing, dispatch, in-cab workflows, service records, and customer management.

A category of waste flowing from generation to final destination, such as trash, recycling, organics, or bulky material.

A goal of eliminating landfill disposal through aggressive reduction, reuse, recycling, and composting across an entire community or organization.