Town of Gilbert, AZ

Reduction in trips saves $1,600 a day on miles no longer driven

Town of Gilbert, Arizona: The Solid Waste Department picks up contained refuse (solid waste) from 66,000 residential customers and 800 industrial customers. They have Zonar’s V2J™ HD-GPS in all their trucks including flatbed, roll-off and automatic side loaders and use Zonar’s EVIR® solutions for pre- and post-trip inspections.

The Town of Gilbert receives 40 to 50 calls a day about missed waste collections. Before Zonar, the Town would automatically send a truck out for a return trip. With Zonar’s HD-GPS tracking and analysis, Gilbert was able to identify issues such as certain dead-end streets susceptible to being missed and customers who reported being missed but had indeed been picked-up but were refilling their containers. With respect to missed collections, the Solid Waste Department was able to reduce missed collections trips by 50%. This miles-never-driven achievement resulted in an average savings of $1,600 a day on equipment operating costs and made a positive impact on Gilbert’s efforts for going green.

Idle time reduction means less fuel consumed and less emissions.

Another analysis enabled by Zonar was to understand the amount of time trucks spent idling and the cumulative impact that had on costs and the environment. With new idle time policies in place and the monitoring enabled by Zonar, idling time per truck was halved. When the savings were multiplied across 26-30 routes a day, the magnitude of the savings in both fuel costs and reduced emissions were very significant. Miles-never-driven through eliminating unnecessary idle time, in addition to saving the cost of fuel, means reduced wear-and-tear on the environment and a smaller carbon footprint for the fleet.

Zonar electronic inspections contributes to Road-E-O win.

The Solid Waste Association of North America (SWANA) holds an annual truck Road-E-O that starts with regional competitions and includes a pre- and post-trip inspection contest. The Town of Gilbert attributes its winning streak to Zonar because the kind of inspection Zonar facilitates has them well prepared. This top ranking performance doesn’t manifest itself just once a year in the competition, but in the everyday inspections that contribute to making a safer highway environment.