Electrifying Collection Fleets and Improving Driver Safety With Republic Services

Republic Services Bets Electric Trucks Fit Its Busiest Routes

Republic Services is electrifying about 18,000 trucks that stop roughly a thousand times a day, and the duty cycle decides where it works. Regenerative braking makes stop-and-go collection the best fit for batteries, so residential routes came first and roll-off trucks come last. The harder work sits around the truck, where charger sites are chosen two years before vehicles arrive, and in the cab, where spoken AI alerts plus coaching cut unfocused driving by 95%.

Takeaways

• High-stop routes are the best electrification candidates. Trucks making about 1,000 stops a day suit batteries because regenerative braking recovers energy, and those routes are the worst for diesel efficiency. Front-load trucks do 100 to 120 lifts, roll-off about six, so roll-off electrics come last.
• Coaching turns safety alerts into a 95% drop. In-cab alerts alone cut unfocused driving behaviour by 20% to 30%. Republic then added a coaching program where supervisors sit down with drivers who repeatedly follow too closely, and the combined result was a 95% reduction.
• AI names a pedestrian instead of beeping. Machine learning distinguishes a person from an object and speaks cues such as 'pedestrian rear' and 'pedestrian front' rather than beeping. Drivers who hear a person is behind them stop and assess, where an object may be something they deliberately back toward.
• The electric truck hurdle was driver adoption. The high-voltage batteries and motors performed extremely well, and the trucks matched diesel on ergonomics and function. Some diesel drivers held preconceived notions about EVs, but adoption took one to two weeks once they experienced 30% more interior volume, less vibration and noise.
• Waste collection is harder than autonomous vehicles. Brett Rogers expected nothing to be more complicated than autonomous vehicles at Cruise, then found waste collection harder because the business is always on and customers notice a missed pickup immediately. Republic runs about 42,000 employees and 18,000 trucks serving roughly 5m customers a day.

How Republic puts electric trucks into service

1. Model power draw from the ground up, covering propulsion at different speeds and terrains plus the collection arm that lifts the cans.
2. Build eight range and power-draw estimators that can take different electric vehicles as inputs.
3. Decide where trucks will work about two years ahead, then start utility conversations and charger design and construction. Republic reports a 100% success rate at having chargers running before trucks arrive.
4. Phase electric trucks in with a spare ratio and backup renewable gas or diesel vehicles. The fleet is mostly diesel, with renewable gas at about 20% to 25%.