TrashCanBossPro Blog — Routes by Trash Day

Route Order for Bin Cleaning: Closest First or Furthest First From the Shop

Once you know which cans you are cleaning tomorrow, the next question is the order. Twenty stops can be driven a lot of ways, and the difference between a good order and a bad one is often an hour of drive time. TrashCanBossPro gives you two auto-route options from the shop, plus the ability to set the order by hand. Here is how to choose.

From the Map to an Ordered List

The Waiting List Map: Seeing Every Bin Cleaning That Came Due covered picking tomorrow's stops. Once those stops are assigned to a trailer and a day, they show on the Scheduled List, the dispatch board organized by day and filterable by trailer or truck. That is where you put them in order. The order you save is the order the tech sees on their phone in the morning.

Closest First

Closest First starts with the stop nearest the shop and works outward. The trailer is cleaning within minutes of leaving, and the route ends at the far edge of the day's territory.

Closest First makes sense when:

• The neighborhoods near the shop get their trash picked up early and the far ones late
• You want stops done early in case the afternoon gets rained out
• The tech is ending the day somewhere other than the shop, like dumping wastewater or heading home
• You might cut the day short, and want the close stops finished first

The cost is the drive home. Ending at the far edge means a long empty run back to the shop at the end of the day.

Furthest First

Furthest First drives to the far end of the territory first and works back toward the shop. The morning starts with a longer drive, but every stop after that brings the trailer closer to home, and the last stop is a short hop back.

Furthest First makes sense when:

• The far neighborhoods get their trash picked up first
• The tech needs to refill water or restock at the shop at the end of the day
• You want the long drive done while the trailer is fresh and the roads are quiet
• You expect to add same-day stops near the shop later in the day

The cost is that first drive. If the trash truck has not reached the far neighborhood yet when you arrive, you are waiting.

Let the Trash Truck Break the Tie

For bin cleaners, the deciding factor is usually the garbage truck, not the shop. If the truck starts on the near side of town and works out, Closest First puts the trailer right behind it. If it starts on the far side, Furthest First does. Spend a couple of weeks noting when each neighborhood gets emptied, and the right choice for each route day becomes obvious.

Many companies end up using different options on different days. Monday's zone may run Closest First, Thursday's Furthest First. That is fine. Auto-route is a starting point you pick each time.

Fixing the Order by Hand

Auto-route knows distance. It does not know that the gated community does not open to service trailers until 9, that a school zone backs up at 3, or that one street's trash truck always runs two hours late. After auto-routing, set the route order by hand for the stops you know about.

Common hand adjustments:

• Moving a late-pickup neighborhood to the end of the day
• Keeping all the stops in one subdivision together, even if auto-route split them
• Putting a commercial or HOA stop first, since those cans are not waiting on a curbside truck
• Moving a customer who asked for an early visit to the top

If you find yourself making the same adjustment every week, write it into the can location notes or a client note so the next dispatcher knows why.

What the Tech Sees

The tech logs in with the company login and a personal PIN and sees the day's stops in the order you saved. Each card has a navigation button, the cans, the trash day and the can location notes. Finish one, look at the next card, keep going. If dispatch changes the order mid-day, the list on the phone follows. For more on the tech's side, see The Tech's Phone in Route Order: Working a Bin Cleaning Route Stop by Stop.

The customer side follows the same order. Customers who use the app see their place in line, so a well-ordered route also means accurate "you're stop 12 of 20" counts.

The Short Version

Closest First starts near the shop and ends far away. Furthest First does the reverse. Pick the one that puts your trailer right behind the garbage truck, then move the handful of stops you know better by hand. For the rest of the routing tools, go back to the TrashCanBossPro bin cleaning route software page.