Case Study: City of Lakeland achieves streamlined routes, major cost savings, and safer collections with RouteSmart Technologies

HOW THE CITY OF LAKELAND, FL STREAMLINED THEIR BUSINESS PROCESSES WITH ROUTESMART

The City of Lakeland, FL — specifically its Public Works Solid Waste Management Division (65 employees, 41 trucks serving over 42,000 households twice weekly) — was managing hundreds of routes with Excel spreadsheets and no reliable map visualization, which made rerouting slow, error-prone, and resource intensive. To modernize routing and support a later transition to automated side-loaders with EZCans, the City of Lakeland selected RouteSmart Technologies and its RouteSmart routing software, which integrates with their Esri ArcGIS platform.

RouteSmart Technologies provided software, training (begun February 2008) and on-site optimization support so staff could iterate routes with driver feedback and later reroute for the automated trucks (September 2011). The result was a significant return on investment from fuel and maintenance savings, substantial time-savings and productivity gains, and safer routes (fewer U-turns, more right turns, avoidance of school zones); RouteSmart Technologies’ solution also helped streamline business processes across Public Works and supported the city’s pursuit of APWA accreditation.

City of Lakeland

Lisa Mccall

System and Application Manager