SAN ANTONIO — Over 50,000 stops were missed by garbage trucks across San Antonio. In previous years, that number was even higher with almost 65,000 missed collection calls per year.
It's not a large number in the grand scheme of things, given that the city of San Antonio's Solid Waste Management Department services over 375,000 customers, providing pick ups for trash, recycling and organic waste. However, it's a big enough number for the department to start looking for solutions.
"That's a relatively big number that we want to improve," said Nick Galus, assistant director for Solid Waste Management Department. "And so we're looking at this technology to help us make improvements and reduce that number, hopefully get it down to zero."
Part of the problem, Galus explains, comes from the paper maps garbage truck drivers have to navigate their routes.
"Many of the newer drivers, what they'll do is they'll highlight the streets as they go down each street," he said. "They'll highlight it one color. They indicate that they've done this side and then they'll go back and highlight a different color to show that they've serviced both sides."
It's why San Antonio City Council approved a $6 million contract for the next five years with Rubicon Global LLC to provide a Smart Collection System to solve the problem. The initial cost is $413,258, and funding for the rest of the contract depends on City Council's approval of the annual budget which is set to be voted on in mid-September.
"Essentially, we're going to be getting a tablet that we're going to be putting inside the truck," Galus said. "Just like any GPS, it's going to have all these different points on it. And so as the drivers are going through neighborhood, they'll be able to see the dots, for instance, change color. It'll show one color for those that we haven't picked up and then another color for those that we have."
Austin, Denton and Phoenix all use similar technologies for their Solid Waste Management departments.
"It was inevitable that we would be migrating and leveraging technology for the type of work that we do," Galus said. "It's been a long time coming. Our drivers are not perfect. Our residents aren't perfect as well. And you know, whether the case is that our driver missed it or maybe the resident set it out late, we could work with them, but this technology will minimize the human error aspect of it."
The technology is planned to be installed in the garbage trucks in the next few months, with it completely rolled out by Christmas. Galus expects it to be fully implemented by 2025.