Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
4.
R
ESULTS
The City of Altoona has 19,957 residential locations that generate
approximately 997,850 pounds of solid waste each week. Monday collection
in Eldorado contains the fewest households with 3,599. Conversely,
Wednesday collection in Fairview contains the greatest number with 6,201.
This represents a 72 percent increase in households compared to Eldorado.
Several companies with a large number of Fairview residential customers
expressed frustration regarding the difficulty in completing all their stops prior
to the 3PM deadline. This demonstrates the need for a more efficient
collection system as driving several blocks between households and
crisscrossing the city results in wasted work time.
City-wide, Company A serves the largest number of households at24.3
percent. Three companies (A, D, and N) serve half of all households. The
remaining 50 percent is comprised of several companies with only 1 to 2
percent of households and three companies (F, G, and O) serving less than one
percent. This exemplifies the large amount of unnecessary waste collection
traffic as several solid waste companies have few customers that could
otherwise be served by companies with a larger number of customers.
4.1. Scenario 1
Table 2 presents results from modeling Scenario 1 - current collection - in
the four collection areas. Monday collection represents the longest number of
miles traveled (1,266.8 miles) of all four collection days. Conversely, Monday
has the least amount of collection hours (64 hours and 46 minutes).The
transfer station being located furthest from Monday collection area has an
influence on the former while the fewest number of households has an
influence on the latter. Wednesday collection in Fairview neighborhoods has
the greatest number of households resulting in the longest collection time of 74
hours and 50 minutes. This represents a 15 percent increase in collection time
from the least on Monday. The greatest number of trips to the transfer station
(52) also occurs on Wednesday. With the transfer station nearby, the fewest
miles travelled (820.7 miles) occurs during Thursday collection. This
represents a 35 percent decrease from the longest distance on Monday.
Overall, results suggest that the greatest distance traveled coincides with
increasing distance from the transfer station and the longest hours of operation
corresponds with increasing number of households.
