Communauté d'agglomération Gaillac-Graulhet
The Gaillac-Graulhet urban area comprises 56 municipalities and 70,000 inhabitants, with a complex waste collection organization: four public authorities, two service providers, and a mix of door-to-door collection, drop-off points, underground containers, and above-ground bins. The fleet consists of about fifteen trucks (rear-loading, hook-lift, and crane trucks), with crews working in the field from 5:00 AM to 7:00 PM.
Paul-Henri Cavaillès manages the Operations department within the Waste Management division. In practical terms, this involves overseeing onboard computing, responding to user inquiries, managing special waste fees, and handling a wide variety of other tasks. It is a broad scope, covering a territory that also has its own tourism-related specificities, which brings high expectations regarding the cleanliness and appearance of collection points during peak season.
With the contract for the previous provider coming to an end, management wanted to start fresh with a new tool. UNICO responded to the call for tenders with the right features, at the right price, and with a team that inspired confidence from the very beginning.
Three key challenges were identified:
Paul-Henri Cavaillès took up his position at the time of the rollout. Everything had to be built from scratch, as the data from the previous provider was unusable and routes had to be recreated. It was also necessary to fully catalog the database of professional bins.
Very quickly, a first technical problem arose: the chips installed on the bins were not the right format. When a bin was lifted, the number that appeared in the system didn't correspond to anything. It was impossible to get the system running.
"In less than half a day, it was sorted out. Everyone got involved: UNICO and the provider. The problem was identified immediately, and the solution was found."
The implementation then proceeded in stages. The first objective was to get the agents to start the tablets manually, as the old system had started automatically with the truck.
The second objective was the special waste fee. A large part of the territory was not yet equipped with chips on professional bins. Agents had to be sent into the field to install them, with battery life constraints in sometimes remote areas. The solution, found through discussions with UNICO, was to use the PDA provided for in the contract, which allowed for scanning the chips and compiling the codes directly into an Excel file while in the field.
Regarding user inquiries, when a resident calls to say the truck didn't come, the local authority can now verify it in a few clicks and obtain the time of passage, the exact route of the truck, and a photo if needed. A concrete example: a business was calling regularly to report that it wasn't being collected, even though it claimed to put its bin out "very early." In reality, the agents had taken the route in the opposite direction, and the bin simply hadn't been put out yet at that time. Thanks to the collection data and the route tracking, proof could be provided.
We don't track routes to prove that agents didn't show up. On the contrary, it's to prove that they did. And the agents understand that.
Regarding the special fee, the database is now reliable: each chip corresponds to a specific waste stream, site, and business. Paul-Henri exports collection data daily and works with compiled files that allow him to know exactly what was collected and for which professional at any given time. It’s a level of confidence he didn't have before.
As for routes and management, the route tracking data has been sent to the local authority's geographic information department to begin visualizing the paths taken. The question of optimization is now on the table.
Regarding the teams, working with a structured tool has helped staff develop their skills. Paul-Henri is currently training the local authority's reception staff so they can use the software's data to support the toll-free helpline.
UNICO and the local authority are working on a major project: direct billing for the special fee. The new pricing structure has been in place since July 2024. The goal is to develop a connector to export collection data to the financial software. Paul-Henri wants to retain control over validating the file before it is sent to the Public Treasury, as part of an operational control process, but the objective is to eliminate manual data entry.
The deployment wasn't a straight line. There were technical issues to manage, human resistance to address, and two years of groundwork to build the database. What Paul-Henri takes away from this today is that every problem found a quick solution, and the results speak for themselves. The local authority has moved from paper logbooks to a reliable database capable of justifying every bin collection to businesses in the area.
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