With all the electronic systems that are making their way onto today’s automated truck, the cab can feel as cramped as that of a stealth fighter.

By Lynn Merrill

Electronic systems can improve route productivity, enhance safety, and provide real-time status of everything from the operation of the packer to the temperature of the transmission fluid. If you add GPS and wireless data transfer that can tell the office where the truck is and what the last stop on the route was, and, by the way, can add this late setout to the list of stops, today’s drivers may feel like they need to enroll in a six-month flight school.

But with all the technology in the cab, there are trade-offs in the form of increased complexity for maintenance and added costs to both the purchase price and life cycle maintenance expenses. There’s also the challenge of fitting the driver into the vehicle in a way that will allow him to perform his duties for up to 12 hours while minimizing the potential of repetitive injuries and providing him with some modicum of creature comforts. The challenge becomes deciding what you want or need on your truck, and justifying it to the powers that cut the check.

Deciding What You Want
For most operations, when it comes time to specify the next set of automated collection vehicles, we start out by looking at the level of satisfaction with our current fleet, the costs associated with its operation, and the level of reliability that the vehicles have provided. In many cases, there may be a high level of satisfaction with the existing body and chassis manufacturers that you’re using. If that’s the case, the specification that worked last time is the one that you’ll use this time, and you may even elect to simply change the dates and quantities and sign it off.

But in some cases, if the performance of the last fleet of trucks was less than satisfactory, it becomes necessary to rethink what works and what doesn’t and then compare that to what’s reasonably available. Since an automated collection truck is the sum of all the different parts, determining what reliability and performance you want out of each component becomes crucial to fully developing the specification.

In automated trucks, the performance of the arm is a source of maintenance concerns, followed by the functionality and durability of the body. Despite the efforts by the various body vendors to make a bullet-proof cart lifting system, arm failures and performance problems with the associated pneumatic or hydraulic control systems continue to be a number-one concern for operation and maintenance staffs. With some collection operations achieving 1,200 lifts per route, an arm that requires adjustment every 10,000 lifts means that truck has to visit the garage for frequent and costly downtime.

Also of concern in arm design are the ability to maintain a grip on the cart, especially with variable cart sizes in use, and the reach and geometry of the arm through its motion. An arm that needs a certain minimum distance from the body before it can grip a cart may not perform well in narrow alleys. Conversely, an arm with inadequate reach may require the driver to edge too close to parked cars or other obstructions in order to service the cart, creating the opportunity for sideswipes and damage claims. An arm that commences cart dumping prior to reaching the apex of its lift may create the opportunity for littering because the materials spill before it reaches the hopper. Obviously, if the driver has to stop frequently to clean up spilled material, the truck’s productivity will suffer.

Packing systems are another source of frequent maintenance complaints, and misalignment and excessive wear of the blades, cylinders, and tracks should be reviewed and minimized through the specification process. Packing systems that can be adjusted to reduce the number of packing cycles based on the number of carts dumped into the hopper and the remaining capacity of the truck can offset excessive wear and may be a feature worth investigating. Body construction of appropriate thickness and metal types can minimize excess body wear, making the difference between a truck that lasts five years and one that lasts significantly longer.

Determining the logistical concerns of the routes to be serviced is important to know when configuring the cab of the truck and the seating arrangement. In automated collection, the presumption is that the driver sits passively on the rump while manipulating a joystick for 10 hours, exiting the vehicle only for breaks or an occasional errant cart. But the reality of daily operation may involve much more. Do you need to have right-hand drive, left-hand drive, or dual-drive setups in order to maximize the flexibility of the vehicle?

For example, if the collection operation tolerates the collection of overflow materials placed alongside the cart, it may be necessary for the driver to dismount the cab frequently. If the cab is standard height, or is loaded with gadgetry, each exit creates an opportunity for a work-related injury by slipping on a step or banging a knee against a component box. Also, if the drive is on the left-hand side, the driver may be placed in a hazardous position by having to exit on the traffic side and walk around the cab of the truck to reach the carts. Right-hand drive and low-entry cabs may be the recommended alternative for this situation.

If frequent exiting is necessary, it may be desirable to have a stand-up drive on the right-hand side of the vehicle and to have either a bi-fold door or no door at all. Dual drives may be warranted both in urban and rural settings, especially if the collection route involves narrow streets in the city or the need to service two sides of a road in a rural setting.

And depending on the situation, it may even be desirable to consider the installation of a cart tipper on the left-hand side of the truck to be able to service from both sides in a cross between semi- and fully automated services.

Sizing of the cab interior and what you ultimately put into it will have to take into consideration the wide range of driver sizes, from ultra-petite to over-wide. Being able to adjust the seat for these sizes comfortably may require that you make reasonable accommodation in the cab design and take into consideration what you ultimately load into the cab envelope. Seats that include a full range of adjustments, seat warmers, and supports may reduce the fatigue factor and improve driver comfort, but the cab size has to be able to accommodate the seat systems and any controls.

On most automated collection trucks, cameras and monitors are now standard equipment, but where one camera is good, more may be better—or not. While rear-facing cameras are quickly becoming a standard, placement of a camera that views down the traffic side of the truck adds additional safety, while a hopper camera helps drivers see what’s happening with the cart-dumping following close behind. These cameras provide an added margin of safety by allowing the drivers to see into the truck’s blind spots. But now there are three screens, potential distractions leading to the more-may-not-be-better concern. Consider all the other distractions in the cab before you add more cameras, because while you may feel you’re increasing the safety aspect, you may inadvertently walk into the law of unintended consequences by having too many distractions for your drivers, especially in conjunction with other features.

Communication equipment is another system that has become a standard requirement on automated trucks, with the two-way radio quickly being supplanted by cell phone and wireless interaction. Being able to up- and download routing data to onboard systems is the ultimate management tool for creating on-route flexibility. Having the driver interface with the system to confirm cart services, late setouts, and other updates in real time eliminates conflicts both from the resident side and the driver side.

But radio calls, ringing cell phones, and beeping e-mails that occur at the wrong time can distract the driver—when your e-mail beeps, can you resist the urge to see what arrived? A technology-savvy driver’s urge to “see what else it can do” may result in system lock-ups and an unnecessary trip to the garage to get it fixed.

Springville, UT
Located along the western edge of the Uinta National Forest, south of Provo, UT, the city of Springville’s refuse collection operation services a customer base of 25,000, as well as some customers located in the county area. The city operates three Wayne 31-cubic-yard Curbtenders on Sterling Condor chassis. “We had the other brands, but we couldn’t afford them,” states Phil Diamond, fleet manager. The city had “a lot of arm problems, followed by electrical problems,” with the former trucks.

The city elected to go with these trucks due to usability, visibility, and maintenance, states Diamond. Resale value doesn’t hurt either, since the city replaces the trucks after only three years. “We get pretty good value,” he states. Two of the trucks run five days a week, making 750 lifts per route, while the third truck is in for service or reserved as a spare. “Our community is spread out a long ways, so these boys have to hustle for them to get 750 cans a day. We do one unincorporated area that’s our worst service area. It’s up a canyon, and it takes a long time to gather that one.”

Diamond is concerned about the geometry of the arm, especially the angle at which the cart begins to dump at the top of the cycle. “There are so many arms that bring the can up and start at an angle and a dump before they get to the top. In our small town if they make any kind of a mess, the drivers have to get out and clean it up. On the Wayne arm it will go up straight and then dump when it reaches the top. So that’s saving them a lot of time right there.”

Diamond is concerned about the complexity of the computer system, especially with his technology-savvy drivers. The trucks are equipped with touch screens in the cab that allow the drivers to adjust the packing sequence from after every three carts down to after every cart as the truck fills. “Our drivers don’t pack a PC manual with them, and a lot of times on that computer, they will get mixed up,” he says. “They’ll change packed cycles on it. They don’t have the book with them, and they’ll get confused as to where they’re at on the computer. They’ll have to bring it in to have us straighten it out for them. It’s not a hard job, but it’s not really driver-friendly.”

Oak Harbor, WA
Reliable automated collection trucks are important to the city of Oak Harbor, since the city is located on Whidbey Island in the Puget Sound area of Washington state. According to Bob Jarski, public works operations manager, “Over the years, we’ve gone from the rear-loader, hand-shucking cans into the back of the trucks to going automated in 1996.” The city operates four collection trucks, two for refuse collection and two for recycling collection using 28-cubic-yard Wayne Curbtenders on Peterbilt 320 chassis. The city provides collection services five days per week to approximately a thousand customers each day.

“Reliability of the product is very important to us,” says Steve Bebee, field supervisor. “Up to now, we only had two automated trucks. If we have a breakdown, that really puts a bind on us, especially with us living on an island. We don’t have the ability to reach out to get a rental truck or something like that, so reliability of the product is very important to us. Garbage is like a mailman—you gotta pick that stuff up rain or shine, and it’s important to have reliability out there. We noticed a huge difference since we’ve had the Wayne Curbtenders: that our trucks are online and ready to work on a daily basis. It’s just made the life of our residents and the employees a lot easier having trucks that are dependable.”

The city began specifying three cameras on its trucks for safety. One camera points toward the rear of the truck, while a second camera points toward the cart dump, and a third camera is mounted on the left-hand mirror. “It makes it a really nice option for the operator as they’re pulling back into traffic that they can see down the line of their truck,” says Bebee. “We felt that it has increased their visibility immensely. If you’re sitting on that right-hand side of the truck, you’re having to look across the side that has your control boxes, your PCs for your automated systems, and your monitors. It makes it difficult if you’re just looking at the mirrors to try and visualize traffic that’s coming toward you. All you have to do is look up at your monitor and it gives you a pretty wide-angle shot of the traffic that you’re merging into.”

As part of the process of selecting the new trucks, the city required that each vendor provide a demonstration truck for the drivers to operate. “They were the ones that were out actually driving the demos, and we let them all pretty much do it,” states Bebee. “We didn’t just pick one driver; we put all the drivers in the trucks. At the end of the day we would have a rating sheet and pretty much go through every detail and find out exactly what they like about certain trucks and chassis.”

Driver input played a role in the city specifying one in-cab feature. “It’s a small thing,” says Bebee. “Instead of having a regular hand-operated window with the levers you turn to go up—our drivers kept saying that those things really gouged their knees off in a day’s time—we went with electric windows. We went with a regular toggle switch with the electric windows. It was a small thing, but yet that thrilled them to death.”

Puyallup, WA
Murrey’s American services the eastern half of Pierce County, Gig Harbor, and National Island in Washington state. Using 13 automated trucks, the company services approximately 44 residential routes each week. Three of the trucks are dedicated to yardwaste collection, while the remaining 10 provide service on a newly instituted commingled recycling program. Of the yardwaste trucks, two are Heils and one is a McNeilus Auto-Reach; all operate on Peterbilt 320 chassis. The 10 automated trucks are Autocar low-entry cabs with McNeilus drop-frame automated side loaders.

“We went with the low-entry cab, and it’s a sit-down driver side and a stand-up right-hand drive cab,” says Matt O’Connell, operations manager. “While all the recycled customers are in the 96-gallon cart, there’s still sometimes additional recycling to pick out outside the cart. That’s also the reason we went with that drop-frame automated side loader. It’s still easy to load by hand when necessary. The other thing we’ve done is enhanced the camera system on it. There’s a camera on the regular driver side so that the worker has another view besides the mirror down that street side. Also we’ve upgraded the safety lighting on the rear of the truck to try to better alert people that a service truck is ahead and to be cautious. As far as driver comfort, we went with the bigger package inside the cabs so the steering wheel is slightly smaller and the seat is able to go back farther. There is a little more room there for guys that are little bigger in size to be able to drive those trucks comfortably. We made sure that the setup was comfortable for the driver. The joystick is sitting in a good, ergonomically correct area. We made sure they had the best comfort for our drivers.”

The challenge for the company is to operate some of its rural automated routes without having to double back or constantly to be performing U-turns to get both sides of a road. Using the drop-frame body helped solve that situation, says O’Connell. “The thought was that there would be some hand-loading involved, and we didn’t want to have the guys throw it up over the top of the regular automated. Plus, it offered the ability to put a regular cart tipper on the regular driver side of the truck. We have some routes that are relatively rural, and at some points we pick up both sides of the road, so we didn’t want to have to have the guy bring the cart around to the other side. The other thing was how well the arm dumped up against the body. We pick up some alleys with these trucks, and at some point you don’t even extend that arm. We wanted to stay away from buying specific trucks for specific routes. We wanted something that would fit all of our service areas.”

Driver input played a major role, and like many operations the use of demonstrator trucks prior to selection was instrumental in selecting the final trucks for the company. “We put guys that were very experienced running automated into those demos and then brought feedback from them about what worked, what didn’t work, what was neat, what wasn’t neat. The biggest thing we paid attention to were the safety items,” states O’Connell. The selection of the camera system was a result of driver input, as were cup holders in the cabs. One item that the drivers wanted, but the company elected not to install, was air conditioners. “They really wanted air-conditioning, but on those low-entry auto cars they put that roof-mount air conditioner on it,” says O’Connell. “They seem to have problems with that on occasion, so we stayed away from that; but that’s why we bought that configuration—so that you can leave that work site door open all the time.”

Houston, TX
The City of Houston, TX, operates 111 automated trucks on a mix of Peterbilt, Crane Carrier, and Freightliner chassis, with 25-cubic-yard Heil Rapid Rails and 31-cubic-yard McNeilus bodies. “We started buying the Freightliners because the cab and chassis were designed for driver comfort,” e-mails Andrew Contreras, assistant director of the Solid Waste Department, Maintenance Division. Some of the additional features the city is installing on its latest round of trucks include Telma Retarders for better braking power and prolonged brake life, cameras for safety when backing up from dead-end streets, and low-pressure EGR DNOx and DPF diesel emission systems to reduce emissions, as well as automated lubing systems to prolong life of parts components of the arms, packers, body, and chassis and new safety LED lighting systems.

According to Contreras, drivers play a big part in selecting the cab and chassis for driver comfort. “One of the requests was that the water cooler is exposed to dirt, et cetera,” he states. “We had a storage compartment with locking door installed on the packer body so they could keep their water coolers clean. Air-ride seats were added, heated mirrors, air horns and electric mirrors, electric windows, cleanout rack to assist in cleaning out the cleanout boxes, two cables in the event they get stuck at the landfill, air line to keep cabs clean. We have found the operators of any garbage truck spend long hours in this type of environment. The better you equip them with driver comfort, the less tired they will be at the end of the day, and they become better operators and more alert while doing their job task. This was a no-brainer.”

According to Contreras, horsepower, payloads, engine size, and transmission go hand in hand when specifying any type of vehicle. “What we found was at one time we thought bigger transmissions were better when we used to spec out HD-4560 transmissions,” he states. “Now we spec MD-3060 that are $7,000 cheaper and perform just as well, giving us the torque we need to carry our payloads. On the bodies, we found that the McNeilus has a higher compaction ratio. When we tested the compaction, we found that we were getting 12 to 17 tons on the McNeilus. That has proven to be a better application for our environment.”

Lynn Merrill is a consultant based in southern California.

MSW - January/February 2006