Project Profile: Bar Code Scanning Tech Improves Processing at Collection Centers

Refuse collection centers play an important role for municipalities, allowing residents to dispose of bulky trash items that may not be eligible for curbside pickup. In addition to providing a necessary service for residents, these sites also help curb illegal dumping. Managing the use of the centers, though, can be a difficult, cumbersome task, especially when use is restricted to residents for non-commercial purposes and there is a cap on the number of times a resident can use the centers in a year.

Facing similar challenges shared by municipalities across the United States, the Chattanooga Department of Public Works turned to IDScan.net, to provide an innovative new solution to improve processing and cut down on the amount of waste being disposed of at the city’s three centers. Since the implementation of IDScan.net’s solution, Chattanooga has made processing more efficient, cutting the time it takes down from over a minute to only three seconds. Furthermore, the city now knows that all the information it is collecting is 100% accurate.

The IDScan.net solution makes processing individuals seeking to dump trash at the centers quick and easy. When a resident arrives at the refuse collection center, a Public Works employee simply scans their driver’s license or any type of government-issued ID. Within a matter of seconds, the solution notifies the employee whether the person resides within city limits, and how many times the individual has visited all of the city’s collection centers within the year. If the visitor either does not reside within city limits or has met the annual limit for dumping, then the employee knows the individual is not authorized to use the center. Additionally, the individual’s information is automatically harvested and stored in a cloud-based dashboard that can be accessed by any authorized employee from any location, facilitating the transfer of information between the three centers and the main office.

In addition to improving efficiency, this technology prevents errors associated with manual data entry since it automatically harvests all the data embedded on the scanned ID. Before Chattanooga implemented IDScan.net’s solution, the centers used paper forms on which individuals would fill out their information. Then, Public Works employees would manually enter the individual’s information into a database and check their address and number of visits. This old method was not only inefficient and laborious, but it also presented opportunities for human error. Using the new solution, an individual’s information is captured with 100% accuracy within seconds.