Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
traffic can also lead to road degradation. Last, City of Altoona residents are
paying more for the freedom to choose system than if the city had one or two
contracted companies.
Aside from the freedom to choose, two other benefits have been identified
with this system. First, elderly residents have difficulty preparing their trash
for curbside collection and the company they subscribed with for 25-plus years
understands their need. Upon arriving at their residence, workers will walk to
the back door to retrieve their trash and place it in the hauler. Some companies
even advertise on their collection trucks the phrase ―elderly friendly.‖ Many
elderly fear they will lose this privilege if the city contracts a required
company for all residential collection. However, if the city were to, the few
companies interviewed for this research indicated they would be willing to
assist elderly or handicapped customers. Special contractual provisions (for a
small additional charge) could also be added for those that needed or desired
backdoor pickup. Second, most companies do not have restrictions on the
amount of solid waste residents can place out for pick-up. Many residents said
they can place large amounts of garbage out for pick-up (seven or eight bags)
and their company will collect it all. Companies do not want to place
restrictions on amounts for fear they will lose business to other companies.
Aside from the cost, residents are the primary beneficiary of the current
system. Each company also benefits by getting a share of the customer base.
Regardless, there are too many companies participating in solid waste
collection and the benefits residents receive negatively impact the
environment. The situation also demonstrates how local governments fail to
use GIS as a planning tool.
This research presents the use of GIS as an assessment and planning tool
for a case study of solid waste collection in the City of Altoona. The city lends
itself as a unique study area compared to others in the academic literature due
to the sheer number of collection companies and the lack of systematic
planning amongst them. Jovicic et al. (2011) states there is no universal
solution for the optimization of solid waste management as each locale's
characteristics must be taken into consideration as unique. Utilizing the GIS
network analyst function of Vehicle Routing Problem (VRP) and data obtained
from the IRC, the purpose of this research is two-fold. First, GIS was used to
model the current
freedom to choose
system to assess collection time, miles
traveled, and number of trips to the transfer station. The design of the current
collection systems likely results in wasted miles traveled and lengthy
collection times. Therefore, the second part of this research used GIS to model
alternate collection scenarios that potentially improve the freedom to choose
