The City of Lakeland improves efficiency, saving hundreds of thousands in insurance payouts while delivering exceptional customer service

A proactive approach to coaching improves safety and protects the City from false claims.

Since the City of Lakeland’s operations relies on a cash reserve of enterprise funds, it’s essential that they minimize safety-related costs. Though safety is a top priority for the City, limited functionality from their legacy camera provider made it difficult to coach drivers and investigate incidents. This led them to search for a more robust solution. “We needed better visibility because our previous system wasn’t very comprehensive or user-friendly,” said Ginn. “We had to dig pretty deep to get the safety data that we needed.”

By adopting Samsara’s Video-Based Safety solution, the City can now take a proactive approach to coaching. Drivers now have the opportunity to self-correct unsafe habits with in-cab alerts, receiving real-time feedback on risky behaviors such as speeding and mobile usage. 

Samsara also makes it easy for the City to investigate incidents, protecting innocent drivers and reducing costs. In one example, the City was able to use footage to exonerate a driver from a non-at-fault incident, saving hundreds of thousands of dollars in estimated insurance payouts. “With the cameras, we have video of what happens at the scene of the incident,” said Ginn. “We’ve settled a claim that has already paid for the entire system just from not having to litigate.” By minimizing safety-related costs, the City can continue to operate without tapping into their cash reserve—which ultimately enables them to continue providing the community with exceptional services while maintaining low rates. 

Beyond driver safety, the City also uses Samsara footage to protect against claims of property damage. Large collection trucks are often held responsible for damage to residential properties. With Samsara, the City can now easily refute false claims using footage captured on AI Dash Cams, improving efficiency and reducing operational costs. “Since our garbage trucks are so big and heavy, we always get blamed,” said Ginn. “We’ve been able to use the video to prove at least three or four cases of property damage.”

Streamline routing and dispatch with best-in-class GPS tracking.

While the City of Lakeland is a government agency, it runs on enterprise funds. The City charges rates that are just enough to fund 60 days of their operations, with some reserve left over in case of emergencies—zero tax dollars are involved in the City’s operational expenses. To maintain its low rates and minimize costs, it’s critical that the City’s collection services run as efficiently as possible.

Prior to Samsara, limited visibility made it difficult to confirm service completion at commercial and residential properties. When customers called about missed service, drivers would often need to return and service the property again. Drivers deviating from their predetermined route can cause massive inefficiencies and extra dump charges. “We’re a business based on customer service,” said Ginn. “When people are calling City Hall about their trash, that impacts our bottom line.”

With Samsara, the City gained real-time visibility, enabling them to pinpoint the location of their collection fleet. Now, administrators can clearly see where collection trucks are located on the Samsara Dashboard, making it easy to reallocate resources and send assistance during busy periods. The City can also enhance operational efficiency and improve uptime when responding to customer inquiries, leveraging real-time location tracking and video footage to determine whether a container has been serviced or not. By reducing missed service, drivers now have more resources available for other strategic tasks. 

“The video shows if the containers are still full so drivers don’t have to go back,” said Ginn. “This saves us time and provides another opportunity for revenue.”

Improving driver engagement and reducing costs with RouteSmart integration.

The City of Lakeland serves more than 5,000 business accounts and 50,000 residents, so it’s critical that their collection services operate efficiently. Though the City has a fleet of over 50 collection trucks, latency from their legacy GPS vendor made it difficult to ensure accurate routing and dispatch. Prior to Samsara, they experienced gaps in their GPS signal lasting up to two minutes, causing service delays along a driver’s route. To streamline their routing operations, they required a robust solution that offered more accurate GPS tracking.

By integrating Samsara’s real-time GPS data with their third-party routing software, RouteSmart, the City now has full visibility into their routing operations. Instead of two minute gaps, administrators can now track the location of their vehicles with exacting precision, leading to improvements in efficiency and service delivery. “With Samsara, we can see our trucks down to the one hour per mile mark,” said Ginn. “The visibility into the routes is just amazing.”

As a result, the City is able to optimize their routes and improve driver engagement. With the route data captured from Samsara and RouteSmart, they can design new routes that are more efficient and more balanced across their workforce. Not only have drivers responded positively to these new routes, they are more cost-efficient too. “Lighter routes for our drivers mean less overtime,” said Ginn. “The new routes help to keep the balance across our drivers, and make the workload equitable.”