VEOLIA TASMANIA CASE STUDY
CLIENT: Veolia Tasmania
Recycling and waste management company, Veolia is responsible for Recycling and FOGO collections at all domestic residences in Northwest Tasmania as well as Tasmania’s southern regions.
In a Tasmanian first, the company has installed five new world-class MAX-SAFE safety measures from SGESCO-MAX in six new residential collection vehicles operating in northern Tasmania with more implementations planned for 2025.
Combined with new, industry-leading, front vehicle design, these trucks are some of the safest in Australia in terms of identifying vulnerable road users and responding in time to avoid any accidents.
John Kneebone, Veolia Maintenance Coordinator, Northern Region Tasmania, Veolia.The safety solutions overcome the major blind spot challenges of operating residential collection vehicles.
SNAPSHOT
In many parts of Tasmania, Veolia is the company contracted to collect recycling and FOGO (Food Organics and Garden Organics) through kerbside services, making their vehicles prevalent on city laneways, suburban streets and rural roads. Due to their size, operations and limitations (including blind spots) heavy vehicles are a known and universal safety risk to vulnerable road users (VRUs) everywhere.
At Veolia, safety is the company’s highest priority with a 'No Compromise' approach to providing a safe workplace for employees, contractors and visitors. This approach extends to the communities in which Veolia operates, with protecting VRUs a critical priority. This has seen Veolia be a leader in adopting new heavy vehicle safety solutions to protect VRUs and their staff from the trauma associated with accidents.
In 2023, Veolia became the first company in Tasmania to install a suite of MAX-SAFE Solutions, incorporating the latest AI advances, to address blinds spots to the rear and side of a vehicle, making Tasmanian roads and communities safer.
Read on for details on:
• The Operating Environment
• The Safety Challenge
• The Solutions
• The Implementation
• The Future
• The Benefits
THE OPERATING ENVIRONMENT
Being a small island with nearly half its area dedicated to national parks and waterways, creating a circular economy is important for Tasmania and its 570,000 + residents to minimise the amount of waste going to landfill.
In 2020/21, residents and businesses in the Launceston council area diverted 8,334 tonnes through recycling and 11,200 tonnes through composting via a kerbside organic waste collection service called FOGO (Food Organics and Garden Organics.)
Even though many parts of Tasmania are quiet and far less populated than the busy streets of Australia’s major metropolitan cities, this does not mean that collection of residential waste is any safer.
Tasmania is a place that offers a relaxed and laid back way of life. People have a greater sense of freedom and there is less infrastructure such as footpaths; roads are very much shared by all – and – for some – quite streets are play zones.
THE SAFETY CHALLENGE
Veolia is responsible for Recycling and FOGO collections at all domestic residences in Northwest Tasmania as well as Tasmania’s southern regions.
Because of blind spots in heavy vehicles drivers cannot always see vulnerable road users and respond in time to prevent accidental collisions that can result in serious injuries, and sometimes fatalities. Young children can be particularly fallible. Manoeuvring quickly on bikes, trikes and skateboards they are often unaware of the risks. Additionally, their peripheral vision is not fully developed.
Aside from blind spots, the waste management sector has vehicles that are unique to the work they do with lifting apparatus for raising and lowering bins. These elements compound the safety risk around such vehicles.
Another risk element is that recycling trucks don’t always drive forward. There are situations where a truck might reverse along streets to collect garbage bins, such as cul-de-sacs, where turning a heavy vehicle may be a challenge.
This is a vehicle action (or direction) that VRUs may not expect. Seeing a vehicle ahead of them they may well think they are safe to move behind a vehicle. In reality they could be seriously endangering their lives.
THE SOLUTIONS
MAX-SAFE Side Arm Pedestrian ProtectionTM, MAX SAFE Reverse Watch 2.0TM, MAX-SAFE Anti-RollawayTM, MAX SAFE Active BrakingTM and MAX-SAFE Audible AlertTM – all developed by Brisbane company, SGESCO-MAX – were installed on six new Dennis Eagle Elite 6 vehicles responsible for kerbside collections in northwest Tasmania. The solutions overcome blind spots to the rear and side of a vehicle and can actively improve safety.
These new trucks have low-entry cabs with large windows for greater visibility to the front and front sides of the vehicle. The Elite 6 models were the first to be awarded a five-star Direct Vision Standard (DVS) rating by Transport for London in 2022. The DVS measures how much a Heavy Goods Vehicle driver can see directly through their cab windows, with a star rating from zero (limited) to five (good). For the Veolia trucks Bucher Municipal supplied the side loader body, which incorporates advanced new safety elements.
MAX-SAFE Side-Arm Pedestrian Protection is a new camera-based AI solution designed to detect and protect pedestrians and other VRUs from the unique operations of side-arm waste management vehicles. The solution has been integrated with Bucher Municipal’s side arm recycling body mechanics to audibly and visually alert the vehicle driver – and actively halt the vehicle’s side arm or move it to a safer position – thereby preventing collision with a person.
To do this, the arm leverages MAX-SAFE’s Active Braking Solution technology, first developed to prevent vehicle roll-aways.
MAX-SAFE Reverse Watch 2.0 is a reversing sensor mounted on the rear of a vehicle that detects obstacles and people over a 50m2 “danger” area behind a vehicle. The solution has super-fast scanning and detection capabilities that calculate the speed of approaching objects and trigger braking before a person or object enters the “red danger zone”. First launched in 2010 as a much needed solution for heavy vehicle blind spots, MAX-SAFE Reverse Watch had a major upgrade in 2023 to provide faster and more extensive scanning of the rear of the vehicle.
The solution is paired with the MAX-SAFE Active Braking System – Anti-Rollaway. If a person or object is detected, the system stops a vehicle before a driver has time to respond. Also, part of the solution is a verbally spoken audible alarm to alert people around the vehicle of the vehicle’s reverse movement and pending danger. These solutions work together to prevent unsafe situations.
MAX-SAFE Anti-Rollaway Brake System is an active braking solution that ensures trucks won’t roll-away in the event of a driver neglecting to correctly apply the park brake before leaving their vehicle.
THE IMPLEMENTATION
While Veolia Tasmania had previously used MAX-SAFE Anti-Rollaway and Reverse Watch 1.0 on earlier model waste collection vehicles, this was the first time all of these new solutions were used in Tasmania (and by Veolia) to create an advanced safety bubble around a heavy vehicle.
“Our drivers were already familiar with Anti-Rollaway, Reverse Watch with Active Braking, which made it easy for them to get up to speed with the new systems,” noted John Kneebone, Veolia Maintenance Coordinator, Northern Region Tasmania, Veolia.
“Reverse Watch 2.0 is a major improvement on the earlier system due to several feature upgrades. Plus, the side loader solution makes protecting the side of a vehicle safer for VRUs, and more economical and reliable due to the underlying AI technology,” he said.
“Our drivers particularly like the lack of intrusiveness of these news solutions. When installed per the manufacturer's specifications, drivers are only made aware of them when there is an actual danger.”
Collectively these safety solutions deliver greater VRU detection and protection around the
• Front
• Driver’s Side (Kerbside)
• Moving Bin and Arm and
• Rear of the vehicle
as well as prevent the vehicle from rolling away (when the vehicle is not occupied and park brake hasn’t been applied correctly).
With advanced detection, verbal audible alerts to people exterior to and inside the vehicle, and active braking functionality when a safety risk is detected, these vehicles are significantly safer around vulnerable road users.
“Our drivers now have a solid safety system that they can rely on with confidence to protect VRUs and avoid property damage. These MAX-SAFE solutions will reduce the number of incidents where a VRU has contact with the lifting arm or garbage bin, or a reversing truck,” he said.
John Kneebone, Veolia Maintenance Coordinator, Northern Region Tasmania, Veolia.These solutions will reduce the incidents where a VRU has contact with the lifting arm or garbage bin, or a reversing truck.
THE FUTURE
Following the roll-out of the six new residential collection vehicles in North West Tasmania in 2024, Veolia plans to introduce new safety-packed vehicles in 2025 for use in Veolia's southern regions.
In living up to the company’s safety commitment, these vehicles will make Tasmanian roads safer while providing greater peace of mind for Veolia drivers and staff, and for the communities in which Veolia operates, particularly those areas where young families reside.
KEY BENEFITS
MAX-SAFE Side-Arm Pedestrian Protection Solution™
◆ PROVIDES SAFETY ASSISTANCE to the driver.
◆ SAFEGUARDS BLINDSPOTS around the Side Lift Arm.
◆ PROTECTS PEDESTRIANS, and VRUs.
◆ HIGH ACCURACY – detects people (stationary and moving).
◆ AFFORDABLE solution.
◆ Provides ALERTS and AUDIBLE WARNINGS
◆ GREATER SAFETY and PEACE OF MIND – for drivers and
Fleet Managers.
◆ Part of the MAX-SAFE SAFETY ECO-SYSTEM.
MAX-SAFE Reverse Watch ™
◆ ASSISTANCE for the driver.
◆ PROTECTION of people and property.
◆ INSURANCE against driver oversight.
◆ ACTIVE BRAKING on detection of object.
◆ Both VISUAL ALERTS and AUDIBLE WARNINGS.
◆ FAULT MONITORING and OVERRIDE CAPABILTY.
◆ 50m2 DANGER ZONE is programmable.
◆ Complies with ADR 38/40 CLAUSE 4.32.
◆ Part of the MAX-SAFE SAFETY ECO-SYSTEM.
