The V-TRAC program, developed and initially used by the City's Environmental Services Division (ESD), combines Global Positioning System (GPS) technology with Cingular Wireless' nationwide wireless data network to improve the time and scheduling of trash and recyclables collections.

The City is expanding the program to its Metropolitan Wastewater, General Services and Water Departments, while increasing the number of enabled vehicles from 250 to 1,100. City officials project that the program will realize approximately $10 million in savings over the next decade.

"The City's vision was to leverage wireless technologies to improve efficiency and customer service, while keeping costs contained," said Nader Tirandazi, Information Technology Manager, ESD.

"Cingular has been a great partner since the beginning of the project and has played an integral role in turning our vision into reality by delivering the network speed, reliability and most importantly, the coverage we needed to enable V-TRAC to be deployed in every community in the City."

Word of the program's success has garnered interest from municipalities throughout the U.S. To showcase V-TRAC's capabilities, the City has implemented a pilot program in which it hosts the service for the municipality and provides the enabling wireless technology free of charge for up to three months.

"An essential element of good government is finding more efficient ways to provide quality customer service while reducing costs," said San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders.

"Our V-TRAC program is a shining example of how innovation can produce tangible benefits for our communities, and we are particularly proud of the fact the program has been embraced by local governments across the nation who are participating in V-TRAC pilots."

The City of San Diego's Environmental Services Department (ESD) is responsible for collecting the household waste of approximately 1.26 million residents of the nation's seventh largest city.

In just 342.6 square miles, ESD provides weekly refuse collection to 318,000 customers and bi-weekly curbside recycling to 276,000 customers - totaling 29 million stops and 500,000 tons of waste and recycling collected each year - all free of charge. Given this volume, there's a constant need to make sure that the collection process is coordinated in the most efficient and cost saving manner.

Enter the V-TRAC program. It began as a wireless Sanitation Truck Monitoring system (STMS) that combines Cingular's GPRS technology and GPS for tracking vehicle location and overseeing the mechanical performance of the trucks on the road. It also provides near real-time communications between drivers on the road and management support at the home base.

Today, the system supports 400,000 to 500,000 communications per day, providing exact location coordinates, mechanical performance, and vehicle speed. This enables dispatchers to distribute and update work assignments real time while they are in-transit, and gives them the flexibility to make up-to-the-minute changes when needed.

For example, when a customer calls and requests a service that requires immediate attention, drivers working nearby can now be dispatched to the location in less time. This also reduces the need to send extra trucks out on the road.

Since the program kicked off in 2001, the City has eliminated 50 routes per week, decreased the mileage traveled by City Collection trucks by 900 miles per day - and a resulting drop of 390 gallons of fuel usage daily.

In addition to the cost savings from the re-routing program, the City has been able to expand yard waste collection from 150,000 to over 200,000 homes, reducing the landfill materials and enabling the City of San Diego to comply with state waste reduction mandates.

"The solid return on investment we've achieved with V-TRAC and Cingular makes us very excited about the prospects of leveraging high-bandwidth wireless technologies, such as EDGE and UMTS/HSDPA, to develop a new and even more powerful service," said Tirandazi.

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