City of Orlando, Florida

Overview

In December 2018, the City of Orlando and SmartCity launched a six-month technology pilot with the goal of gaining general insights into aspects of the City’s sanitation operations and services, and identifying areas of opportunity for future improvement. SmartCity’s proprietary technology, SmartCity™, was installed in a portion of the City’s fleet of waste and recycling vehicles.

SmartCity was installed in 15 of the City of Orlando’s sanitation vehicles (covering municipal solid waste, recycling, and yard waste) servicing more than 45,000 locations, with a view to uncover opportunities for greater efficiency, more reliable maintenance data, and improved customer service.

After the conclusion of the pilot the following results were identified:

Improved Customer Service

Driver adoption of SmartCity’s technology was very good, with nearly 80 percent of drivers logging into their routes every day. Drivers documented over 1,000 issues along their routes, many of which were backed up by photos showing instances such as a container not being placed out, a container being blocked, or garbage or recyclable materials being improperly set out. This data equipped city employees with the information they needed when investigating citizen inquiries and complaints.

Community Safety Gains

Over the duration of the pilot, SmartCity’s data was able to pinpoint which routes had the most instances of speeding and hard driving. The pattern that was formed suggested that on certain days some routes were more difficult for drivers to complete on time than others. With this information, additional training and monitoring could be implemented for those drivers in order to improve overall safety in the community.

Improved Route Efficiency

SmartCity’s data showed that a wide range of trip times, miles, and number of stops occurred per route, with some routes averaging seven hours while others were almost twice that length of time. If the City were to reduce the number of routes that it runs it has the potential to save a significant amount of tax dollars.

Fleet Maintenance

SmartCity’s data showed that two trucks were responsible for 65% of critical fault codes,and that just ten critical fault codes accounted for 69% of all fault codes that were triggered. Fault code insights provided by SmartCity can be used to improve the City’s truck maintenance program by providing diagnostic information about the vehicles.