What single action using up to the minute technology could result in increased efficiency on residential routes, lowering of carbon emissions, increased morale and employee retention/attraction? With a combination of computer simulations and old-fashioned field knowledge, you may be able to improve your service delivery to achieve multi-faceted positive results!
In a time of tight competition for qualified collections operators, increasing fuel prices, and a need to address carbon reduction in large fleets, a Route Optimization may help your operation meet its goals. The City of Santa Fe, NM, provided residential collections five days a week, which included collection on any holiday that fell into the schedule. The City is facing fast-paced growth in one area of town, and over time, the route sizes in each day had become imbalanced, leading to long work days in the high growth areas. Additionally, like so many other municipalities, Santa Fe is trying to improve its competitiveness for qualified Operators to fill open positions. Santa Fe has partnered with Rubicon for over four years to help modernize its collection operations using thier data-based routing, ticketing and collections confirmation via RUBICONSmartCity technology. Using this data, and applying constraints identified by the City, Rubicon used simulations to design and optimize routes for the greatest efficiency and growth management for the City.
Another goal of the City is to attract and maintain high quality CDL Operators in a highly competitive market. The City wanted to evaluate if moving to a four-day collection schedule with 10-hour shifts would be attractive to current and future employees; and to evaluate the feasibility of utilizing the currently available fleet, given the two+ year wait times for new vehicles. After a high level analysis on the technology side, and a couple of employee surveys, it was decided to move to the new schedule and offer a more attractive four day work week (with three-day weekends!) which also provides the ability to observe holidays by shifting collection days on those weeks. This has already helped attract new employees and improve the morale of current employees. It also helps reduce the City's carbon footprint in many ways- from reducing trips to the landfill with half-empty trucks to eliminating commutes for employees.
As with any major change to schedules, a large public information campaign was undertaken to inform residents of their new collection days. A variety of media were used to reach residents. We will share our experiences, what worked and what did not work, and lessons learned about how people receive information and our observations of the “digital divide.”
We will conduct a hands-on activity for participants that will show the inner workings of a route optimization. Participants will learn what kind of data is collected and evaluated, what constraints need to be considered and applied, and what kinds of outcomes to expect. The activity will explore the aspects of major changes including political ramifications, employee impact, and resident communication.
At the end of the session, participants should walk away with a clear approach on how or whether they should restructure their operations and the key steps involved.
