Best Practice

Inverness Smart Waste Project

Inverness, United Kingdom (2021)

Scale: Beyond City Level

This project aims to develop an innovative, data-led driven approach to waste collection, using route management software with consistent, accurate datasets to allow more efficient routing of waste collection vehicles.

Clean Water And Sanitation

Sustainable Cities And Communities

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Challenge / Goal

The goal is to reduce operational costs by decreasing miles travelled, maximising stops and lifts per hour, balancing workloads and reducing the requirement for overtime. The software also provides the ability to continually improve routing, including the ability to respond to population growth and new housing developments within the region.

Solution

The primary innovation was the procurement of Route Optimisation Software, which allows for the development of optimised waste collection routes. The software was procured after a vendors day and procurement process, and allows the waste collection team to input a number of data sets, and receive in return a number of optimised waste collection routes.

Key steps in delivering this were:

Procure a route optimisation platform for waste collection
Employ a new member of staff for the duration of the project, to improve appropriate datasets and manage platform
Explore opportunities for further roll-out of optimisation software beyond waste collection application

Citizen participation

This project was delivered as part of the 'Scotland's 8th City - the Smart City' ERDF programme.

All cities involved are committed to 'community and citizen stakeholder engagement' as an additional programme output - with engagement required pre-, during, and post-project delivery.

For this project, the following stakeholder engagement was noted:

Pre:

A vendors day was held to help the waste team develop a picture of the market at that time
Engagement with THC ICT department to ensure compatibility with council systems
Engagement with ERDF team to ensure feasibility and eligibility of project
Engagement with other Scottish councils to develop an understanding of their use of route optimisation software
Engagement with THC senior management through council governance processes

During:

Engagement with business support to gain access to appropriate data sets
Engagement with ICT to ensure the deployment of ICT assets matched the requirements of Route Optimisation software
Engagement with operational staff to provide additional qualitative data which would be generated
Engagement with trade unions to keep them up to date of planned and proposed changes

Post:

Addition to the council’s transformation programme opens up the project to further collaborative opportunities
Significant public engagement planned post COVID-19 to raise awareness of changes to waste collections routes
Additionally, throughout the project elected members are kept informed as part of the service’s normal governance process

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Time period

Planning time: 6 months to 1 year

Implementation time: 1 to 2 years

Implementers

The Highland Council

Service providers

The Highland Council - Waste Management Services

End users

The Highland Council

Main benefits

Recycling waste

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