Council bin lorries benefit from new video and wireless technology

Carlisle City Council has addressed an increase in insurance claims by equipping its fleet of refuse and recycling trucks with video cameras and wireless reverse radars.

After a successful trial, the council installed the RX3 hard disk recording 4-camera system and reverse radar from Innovative Safety Systems (ISS) to over 30 of its waste and cleansing vehicles.

Laura Monkhouse, the council’s fleet and depot manager, said: “There were a number of incidents where we had been accused of causing damage to cars or property, and there was no way of knowing if these claims were true or not.

“It was a very time-consuming process.”

She said the new system makes it easy to check what actually happened and often it found the damage occurred before its vehicles were on the scene: “We can also use the footage for crew training and to check that everyone is following the correct procedures,” she added.

The council is also trialling Reaclear, which relies on wireless technology to ensure the reversing assistant is always in the correct position during a reversing manoeuvre.

Liam Prince, operations supervisor, waste services, said: “The crew really like Reaclear, especially the comms feature, which can be used to alert the driver about other issues too such as if a bin is overfull.”