By John T. Aquino

"The overall trend in refuse vehicles is efficiency," says Toby Harris, manager of marketing services for Heil Environmental Services in Chattanooga, TN. "The hauler buyer is paying more for everything. Nowadays, the municipal budget is very tight. And so today - and for the foreseeable future - there is a need to keep a piece of equipment on the road longer and to do it safely."

MSW Management contacted manufacturers and major haulers and asked what factors will shape refuse vehicle buyers' prospective purchases over the next several years and, therefore, what prospective purchasers should be thinking about as they begin to develop their specifications. An overall theme that emerges from these discussions, as the quote above from Harris indicates, is efficiency. Related themes are safety, flexibility, and fuels.

Safety

Asked about current trends and those that will continue or come into play in the next few years, James Johnston, vice president and general manager for McNeilus Truck Company in Dodge City, MN, which manufactures refuse truck bodies, declares, "One thing on top of all else is safety. Safety for our customers and safety for our employees." Johnston refers in passing to a focus on safety in European refuse truck manufacturing, alluding to McNeilus's European connections; in June 2001, McNeilus's parent company, Oshkosh Truck, acquired 100% of the stock of the Geesink Norba Group, a leading European manufacturer of refuse collection vehicles. "We do think that Europe, especially with electronics, has gone above and beyond developing safety in refuse vehicles, with the engine ‘talking' to other truck components. And there are innovations in this country as well. Global positioning [systems] have been used in this industry for routing. But now Trimble in Sunnyvale, California, utilizing GPS, is talking about [being] able to remotely tell you how much the truck weighs on each axle, how air pressure is on all tires, and how many times the truck is cycled. They'll be able to say, ‘This guy's heavy whenever he gets to this point,' and then the company can change the route."

McNeilus has been involved in this technology in another of its industries. In February, Trimble announced at the World of Concrete trade show a new feature as part of its Telvisant Fleet Management System. DriveSafe reporting, developed with the McNeilus Companies Inc., provides ready-mix fleet owners and managers with important indicators of unsafe driving behavior that could lead to expensive truck rollovers. The new feature uses GPS technology and a speedometer sensor to gather vital driving statistics. The driver safety report summarizes data on hard turns, hard starts, hard braking, and speeding while both loaded and unloaded. Operation managers can compare individualized driver performance against fleet standards and use the data to train and counsel their drivers to avoid rollovers and accidents and to enhance safety.

Related to the safety aspects of remote safety monitoring, says Johnston, is its implications for training mechanics. The technical ability in industry is dwindling, he notes. "Statistics show that more mechanics are going out of this industry than coming in. Who's fixing the trucks? A lot of equipment is suffering. You can now diagnose equipment remotely. It's safer, more reliable assistance in maintenance. You are able to show that a particular driver may be overpacking [his] truck and can advise him. A safer driver means a safer truck. It's the only way to build a business. Faster is not always better. It kills the life expectancy of the truck."

Heil Marketing Director Gary Gengozian agrees that safety has become a major consideration in refuse truck development. "It always has been the focus, but now even more. The larger national accounts are focusing a great deal on safety - [for example,] lighting issues and cameras on every truck. Allied Waste Industries in Scottsdale, Arizona, in particular, has promoted lighting issues. And also the trend toward automated vehicles promotes truck worker safety."

Garry Mosier, group safety manager for Allied Waste, reports that Allied started looking at the lighting package of its trucks about two years ago in order to reduce accidents and improve visibility of residential and commercial vehicles. Allied worked with Heil to improve lighting in and on the truck. The new package replaced all incandescent lights with LEDs (light-emitting diodes). "They are more expensive to put in - as much as $2,000 to $3,000 per truck. But they are brighter, and they last longer. The number-one employee write-up had been bulb burnout. With the new lights, we've improved and reduced truck maintenance," says Mosier. He adds that Don Flager, senior vice president of operations, was actively involved in the new lighting standards - "He's driven a refuse truck and looks at it from the driver's perspective" - and that it had the full support of Allied President and CEO Thomas Van Weelden.

In addition, Mosier states, Allied - after purchasing Browning-Ferris Industries (BFI) in 1998 - found that BFI had required cameras on its trucks. Allied broadened the standard to include all Allied vehicles except rolloffs. Just this year, the company wrote a new standard for an additional camera for dual-drive residential trucks. "We've also added LED strobe lights on each side and in front of the vehicles," he points out. "A pilot study of our companies in the South indicated that such lights in effect ask drivers coming from the opposite direction to drive slowly."

As a result of these actions, Mosier relates, Allied's accident rate has declined 20-25% each year for the past two years and is down 17% for the first three months of 2003. He remarks that the feedback from the drivers, which is the "proof of the pudding," has been "tremendous."

"The prime reason for these decisions," Mosier observes, "is the safety of our employees and customers. An added reason is cost. Accidents have a tremendous effect on the cost of insurance. It can cripple a company. The only true way to control that cost is to be proactive in reducing accidents. And the cost of being proactive is a lot less than increased insurance costs. You have to look at the whole picture."

The concern for safety in vehicles is part of waste management companies' overall safety concerns. James T. Schultz, vice president of health and safety for Waste Management Inc. (WMI) in Houston, TX, says, "We've been putting together quite a concerted effort to have good, solid, new safety processes. We are fact-based and data-driven. And our CEO [A. Maurice Myers] has made it clear that safety is a centralized focus of our company; first, because it's the right thing to do for our employees and for the public we are serving and second, because it's just good business. Mr. Myers says, ‘If you can't do something safely, then don't do it until you can.'"

As for remote monitoring, "More and more, I'm sure we'll see diagnosis when the truck is on the road, with the driver dialing in and saying ‘the computer on the truck is telling me this,' and back at the office or garage the diagnosis can be done at a distance," Gengozian predicts.

Jerry Wickit, vice president of purchasing and maintenance for Republic Services in Houston, references a more specific remote monitoring system: "Michelin's chip in the tire." In October 2002, Michelin Americas Truck Tires in Greenville, SC, introduced the eTire System, a remote tire monitoring system designed to provide real-time information about tire pressure, wheel position, and maintenance information. The eTire System incorporates an InTire Sensor, sidewall-mounted SensorDock, Hand-Held or Drive-By Reader, and BIB TRACK software to accurately capture information. The InTire Sensor can be attached to any brand of truck tire, allowing a fleet to monitor and track all of their tires. The information gathered is reported via an Internet server to enable maintenance managers to track tire costs accurately and to monitor inventories as well. The Drive-By Readers in the eTire System immediately can differentiate between inner and outer dual tires, relaying accurate information in real time to the fleet manager. Hand-Held Readers easily can read both inner and outer duals as well. eTire can read the operating temperature inside a tire and correct the pressure reading for "cold equivalent pressure" instead of the expanded pressure occurring after a tire has traveled for a distance and heated up. This allows for precise readings and accurate pressure adjustments, as if the tire were cold.

"Down the road, as it develops," Wickit speculates, "this could extend into other things."

Currently there is technology in development to specifically warn the driver about low tire pressure. In 2001, TRW Inc. in Cleveland, OH, and Michelin agreed to develop and market tire pressure monitoring devices for the passenger-car and light-truck industries that specifically warns the driver of low air pressure. In August 2002, TRW Automotive announced that it and Michelin had developed direct and indirect tire pressure monitoring systems for cars, trucks, and sport utility vehicles. The EnTire Solution will be equipped in vehicles by mid-2003. And on September 11, 2002, Goodyear of Akron, OH, and Siemens VDO Automotive of Berlin and Munich, Germany, announced an agreement to jointly develop an advanced tire pressure warning system to enhance tire and vehicle safety. The companies indicated that the jointly developed passive tire monitoring and display system will be easily adaptable to new automobiles and light trucks and be available for industry commercialization worldwide.

Mark Sobol, product sales manager for East Manufacturing in Randolph, OH, which makes aluminum transfer pushouts, live floors, and tipping platform trailers, notes how, on the road, tire inflation systems that automatically detect and reinflate underinflated tires - manufactured by Eaton  in Kalamazoo, MI; Pressure Systems International in San Antonio, TX; and Hendrickson in Canton, OH, to name a few - have been an incredible safety innovation and hint at the technology ahead.

Flexibility and Fit

"Flexibility of a particular unit is becoming more and more important," says Heil's Harris. "It's called multitasking."

For example, says Harris, "you take an automated vehicle and put on a rearloader tailgate. This way, rather than sending two trucks, you can have one vehicle for the whole route." Harris is describing Heil's Python MultiPack, an automated collection vehicle with a rearloader tailgate. The vehicle is designed to combine automated technology and rearloader convenience in order to eliminate the need for special collection days for bulky items, reducing capital equipment costs as well as labor expense. The MultiPack also can be equipped with commercial container handling devices to pick up those occasional commercial cans along the way.

Such equipment is a way of meeting the customer's needs with multitasked products. Whether it's called multitasking or just finding equipment "that fits," it comes down to a customer and manufacturer working together to find equipment that specifically fits the customer's requirements.

The St. Regis Mohawk Tribe's transfer station in Akwesasne, NY, is scheduled to break ground in spring 2003 - "As soon as the snow melts," says Laura Weber, the facility's solid waste manager. The tribe's Environment Division researched several design options and decided on the system from Haul All in Lethbridge, AB. It has three main components: two transtor units (53-yd.³ containers for the collection of refuse), a recycling depot (four HL 6- yd.³ containers for the collection of recyclables), and a Model 14 truck - a side collection vehicle that is used to pick up materials from businesses and residents and to empty the HL 6 containers at the recycling depot. "We looked and looked, and the Model 14 is really designed for rural communities. Every ‘regular' trash compactor truck is overkill for our needs," says Weber. "What we purchased - a 14-cubic-yard compactor with a Ford 450 - has ease of operation and was half the price of ‘regular' collection vehicles. If your community is relatively small [the tribal community comprises 8,000 people and 1,200 to 1,300 households as well as businesses], you really need to research and research and find a vendor that will work with you on meeting your needs."

Speaking specifically of transfer trailers, Jeff Van Raden of Columbia Corporation in Hillsboro, OR, which designs and manufactures portable landfill tippers, notes that there are different equations for each situation. "People in the East look at trailers we have here on the West Coast and ask, "Why'd they do that?" And people here in the West say the same thing about East Coast trailers. I am very impressed with the work of Gary W. Gray Trucking out of [Kearny,] New Jersey. He'll build trailers for particular needs. He's one of a group of really smart people today building transport to fit particular situations and occasions."

Fuels

The fuel focus in the solid waste industry has been on California.

In June 2000, the South Coast Air Quality Management District (SCAQMD) in southern California unanimously voted to pass Rule 1193, which requires all public or private refuse trucks haulers within the district's jurisdiction who own more than 50 trucks to buy alternative-fuel vehicles (AFVs) when buying new or replacement trucks. The City of Los Angeles is fueling its waste fleet with natural gas (NG), having ordered 120 refuse trucks from Peterbilt in Denton, TX. The engines are powered by low-emission engines from Caterpillar in Peoria, IL, and are equipped with San Diego, CA - based Clean Air Partners's Dual-Fuel NG systems. Waste Management of the Desert in Palm Desert, CA, converted 30 of its 75 curbside refuse and recycling trucks from diesel to compressed natural gas (CNG) - powered engines. The trucks, powered by Cummins CNG engines, have the same driving range as conventional diesel-powered refuse trucks and are considered quieter and less likely to produce billows of black soot than diesel fuel.

California's Carl Moyer Memorial Air Quality Standards Attainment Program, which offers financial assistance to California firms that replace heavy-duty engines with alternative-fuel models, is administered in southern California by the SCAQMD. In the last two years, the program has offered more than $50 million in funding, and waste management firms in particular have been aggressive in applying for these monies. The California Air Resources Board provides up to $1,000 in incentives to fleets to buy AFVs and up to $100,000 for fueling station construction.

Jeremy O'Brien, director of technical programs for the Solid Waste Association of North America in Silver Spring, MD, points to these California programs as something to watch. Already an East Coast jurisdiction - Arlington, County, VA, a suburb of Washington, DC - has started using AFVs fueled with biodiesel.

"What California does drives the country," states O'Brien, noting that California pioneered the use of frontloaders in residential collection. While a study by the New York - based research firm Inform indicates that less than 1% of all the refuse trucks in the United States use alternative fuels, O'Brien adds that "California's move to start specifying alternative fuels in collection vehicles is likely to [affect the] West."

A major player in AFVs has been WMI, which has 400 liquefied natural gas (LNG) - powered refuse collection trucks in California. That number is nearly 60% of all the AFVs in the country being used for refuse collection. WMI's use of LNG trucks began six years ago as part of a project funded by the Department of Energy. The trucks used in the pilot study were Mack Trucks's (Allentown, PA) MR and LE refuse models equipped with Mack's E7G NG engine. WMI's work with AFVs has the personal support of WMI Chairman and CEO Meyers.

According to Inform, a NG refuse truck costs $40,000 more than a conventional diesel vehicle and replacing a vehicle's diesel engine and fuel system can range between $30,000 and $100,000. To date, some studies have indicated that LNG- and CNG-powered trucks might not have the fuel economy of diesel trucks and might require more repair and maintenance. They are, however, quieter and cleaner, which pleases customers and the environment.

Republic's Wickit is not so sure about the westward movement of AFVs. "Liquefied natural gas, for example, has a very limited usage outside of California. We have 30-some automated LNG vehicles in northern California. All in all, they are doing well, and a case can be made for them. But I really don't see LNG vehicles moving west in the near future. Diesels remain an efficient means to get the job done."

Heil's Gengozian agrees that California is a trendsetter and that there might be pockets of need for alternative fuels outside of California. "But I really don't see a large mandate for it," he says.

A potential buyer needs to look to its mission and keep a weather eye to regulations when it concerns AFVs.

Overall, however, Gengozian sees trucks becoming more fuel-efficient. "There's more operating in gear, more noise abatement, less weigh and tear on the engine. This trend started with automated vehicles and now has moved on to other types of refuse vehicles."

Other Trends

O'Brien also sees a collection trend toward single-stream recycling. "It's part of a broader trend incorporating efficiency into the recycling collection system. Forty percent of MRFs [material recovery facilities] are single-stream MRFs. Big cities now are abandoning source separation and going to single stream. One benefit is uniformity - same collection vehicles, waste and recycling. Source separation has worked for a while. But needs and materials have changed."

O'Brien also sees a demand for bulky waste collection as its relates to electronic wastes. "The whole issue is if we're going to recycle them. The City of Minneapolis collects them curbside. There's going to be a need for another vehicle for bulky waste, and it's going to grow in importance."

On the transfer side, says O'Brien, the transfer station will be more of a combination of transfer station and recycling facility. "They'll be more commingling of recycling."

East Manufacturing's Sobol notes, "The haul's getting longer and longer. We've worked with transfer trailers aerodynamically with our Smooth Side Genesis and Vantage [in Houston], and other trailer manufacturers have their ‘smooth side' or ‘smooth wall' products."

"The goal," argues Columbia's Van Raden, "is to develop transport that's light but lasting; that's light but carries more payload safely. We concentrate on working with trailer manufacturers to make the best trailers possible that interface with the tipper."

And so a lot is going on. "Years ago," McNeilus's Johnston concludes, "I said that this business was having a hard time getting out of the blacksmith age. But now it's moving really fast."

John T. Aquino is an attorney, writer, and executive director of the Tribal Association for Solid Waste and Emergency Response in Washington, DC.

MSW - May/June 2003