ASPsoftware.com.au have just released version two of their Multi Vehicle Capacitated Route Planning software to help councils and contractors with the merger and optimising of route areas and the data consolidation process. Recent mandated council mergers in New South Wales (NSW) provide a great opportunity to re-map and re-balance residential route boundaries.
The amalgamation of up to 18 NSW councils (Sydney and regional) is now locked in and the NSW State Government is offering millions of dollars for one-off amalgamation projects and infrastructure assistance. It’s reported that Sydney metro councils can now apply for up to $15 million in assistance grants and regional councils for $10 million plus $3 million for each 50,000 residences above 250,000.
New councils emerging out of multiple council mergers will have to make decisions about levels of service where it varies between the different parts of the new council – how often do the bins get picked up? What other local community services does the council provide? Or does it outsource its operations?
Apart from the depot and administration/call-centre consolidation savings, Terry Daley from ASPsoftware notes that spatial mapping algorithms and weighting factors can be used to automate the calculation of myriads of resident clusters to predict the optimal grouping of collection points per route into truck capacity groups of smaller map zones. These modelling processes can save one or two trucks out of a 12 truck council – double that if the council is a 24 truck size – and at over $600,000 per fully equipped side lift truck that is more than a million in savings over a typical five year collection contract.
Contact ASPsoftware on (02) 94996222 or www.aspsoftware.com.au
*Copy supplied by ASP software
