TrashCanBossPro Blog — Routes by Trash Day

The Dispatcher's Morning Checklist for a Bin Cleaning Route

In a small bin cleaning company, the dispatcher is often the owner, sitting in the truck with a coffee before the trailer rolls. In a bigger one, it is someone in the office. Either way, a good route day starts with the same short list of checks. Skip them and the day finds the problems for you.

Why a Checklist

Deciding when to add capacity, as in When to Add a Second Route Day to Your Bin Cleaning Business, is a once-in-a-while decision. Dispatch is every day. A checklist turns the daily routine into something anyone in the office can do the same way, and keeps the owner from carrying it all in their head.

The list below is split into the evening before and the morning of. Most of the real work happens the evening before.

The Evening Before

• Open the Waiting List map. Look at the due and overdue pins in the neighborhoods whose trash day is tomorrow.
• Pick the stops. Assign those cleanings to the right trailer and tomorrow's date. Add any overdue stops that sit near the route, even if their trash day is different.
• Check the calendar. Is tomorrow a holiday shift day? Is weather coming? Make the call now if a route needs to move.
• Auto-route each trailer. On the Scheduled List, filter by trailer and auto-route Closest First or Furthest First from the shop.
• Fix the order by hand. Move late-pickup streets to the end, keep subdivisions together, put gated communities after they open.
• Confirm reminders. Tomorrow's customers will get the automated night-before reminder. Make sure new customers have their alerts set.

That takes fifteen to thirty minutes once you are used to it, and it is the most valuable half hour of the day.

The Morning Of

• Read overnight replies. Customers reply to the reminder: "skip us this week," "cans on the side," "new gate code." Two-way texting brings those to the office. Act on each one.
• Update notes. Permanent changes go into the can location notes so they show on the tech's card. One-day changes can go in a job note or a quick text to the tech.
• Pull cancelled stops. Anyone who asked to skip comes off the route before the trailer drives there.
• Check the weather one more time. A surprise freeze or storm is better handled at 6am than at 10.
• Make sure each tech is set. Techs log in to the tech app with the company login and their PIN, clock in on the time clock, and see their route in order. A tech who cannot log in at 7:30 is a route that does not start.

During the Day

• Glance at crew GPS. Every hour or so, check the office map. Is each trailer moving through its route? Is anyone stuck?
• Watch for skips. Skips come back with the tech's reason and photos. Decide quickly: back today, another day or next trash day. Text the customer.
• Fit add-ons. Same-day requests go to the trailer whose remaining route passes nearest, slotted into the route order.
• Answer route-day questions. Point customers to the live route map in the customer app when they ask when you will arrive.

For more on the map, see Crew GPS on the Office Map: Knowing Where Every Bin Cleaning Trailer Is.

End of Day

• Review completed and skipped stops. Every skip should have a plan.
• Check payments. Completed jobs create invoices and can charge cards on file. Look for any failed charges and follow up.
• Look at tomorrow. Back to the top of the list.

When the Owner Is Also the Tech

In a one-trailer company, the dispatcher and the tech are the same person. The checklist still applies, it just moves around. Do the evening-before list at the kitchen table, read customer replies over breakfast, and glance at skips and messages between stops instead of watching a map. The tech app and the office screens are both in the browser, so the owner can build tomorrow's route from the truck at the end of the day.

The discipline matters even more here, because there is nobody else to catch a missed reply or a stop that never got closed out.

Make It Yours

Every company adds its own items: a weekly check for overdue pins, a monthly look at route numbers, a reminder to restock before a big HOA day. Write your version down and keep it where the next dispatcher can find it. If the owner gets sick for a week, the checklist is what keeps the routes running.

The Short Version

Build tomorrow the evening before from the Waiting List, auto-route and fix the order, then use the morning to read replies, update notes and get every tech logged in. Watch GPS and skips during the day. For everything else about routing by trash day, return to the bin cleaning route software page.