Staff recommends the City Council approve the addendum to the agreement with Routeware, Inc. for the software and data support of the existing equipment being used in the Solid Waste collection trucks.

In February 2016, the City of Billings entered into an agreement with Routeware, Inc. to purchase hardware and software required for a solid waste route management system.  Routeware is used to manage service levels and frequencies for solid waste customers and is used to manage the routing of the City's collection vehicles.  Routeware provides enhanced customer service, accurate and real-time operational data analysis through live route map displays and dashboards and navigational and service order capabilities from within solid waste vehicles through mobile computing technologies. The original agreement was for five years, and expired in 2021.  This addendum extends the original agreement for another 3 years.  The addendum is for monthly support fees and route optimization services.  The route optimization is needed because the City has grown in the last ten years, but has not added any additional routes, resulting in routes that cannot be accomplished in a standard day.  Route optimization will look at the number of customers, the time to collect trash, miles driven, distance from the landfill, tonnage, etc. and produce an optimized solution for the collection routes.  This optimization will enhance driver safety and increase efficiency.  

This renewal addendum has been reviewed by city legal staff.

City Council may:

• Approve the addendum with Routeware, Inc., or;
• Not approve the addendum with Routeware, Inc. If the addendum is not approved, Solid Waste will lose vital tools to provide garbage collection services.

Ongoing annual costs for Routeware software maintenance and support are $76,164.72.  The total expense for 3 years of support is $228,494.16.  Route optimization is a one-time charge of $43,900.  These costs are included in the approved FY22 Solid Waste operations and maintenance budget.