There are over 9,900 facilities in the U.S. alone dedicated to waste disposal, including landfills, transfer stations, recycling centers, and more. Hundreds of vehicles, both commercial and residential, enter these facilities daily. The automation of waste management access control is becoming essential for managing vehicle flow, billing, and safety at scale.
The Current Process: Waste Management Facilities
When vehicles enter and exit the facility, they pass over scales that measure their weight. This weight is used to track total waste volume and to calculate the tipping fee. To calculate the tipping fee, the tare weight (the weight of the unloaded vehicle) is subtracted from the total weight to determine the weight of the waste material. Most facilities charge by the ton.
At many weigh stations, access control, weight calculation, and payments are conducted manually. These manual processes can slow down ingress and egress, causing backups and delays. Some waste facilities might have RFID readers for frequent customers like municipalities, but the reality is that the traffic at these facilities varies widely. RFID technology is not the most efficient way to streamline access control and billing.
The Ideal Process: Automating Waste Management Access Control with ALPR and WIM
By using vehicle recognition technology alongside weigh-in-motion (WIM) scales, waste facility operators can simplify access control and billing by eliminating the need to manually screen incoming vehicles. Perceptics’ automatic license plate recognition (ALPR) technology offers an easy way to identify vehicles that enter and exit the facility by providing information on what vehicles enter and where they are coming from. Additional vehicle recognition technology, like hazmat placard readers, can help identify hazardous waste. This technology integrates with existing camera infrastructure and user platforms for seamless tracking and billing.
When a vehicle approaches the WIM scale, ALPR technology captures the license plate number. After exiting the scale, the license plate number, gross vehicle weight, entrance time, and date are transmitted to the user platform. Upon leaving, the process repeats to calculate the tare weight. This process automatically captures:
- Gross, tare, and calculated net weight
- Time and date for inbound and outbound weighments
- Vehicle ID information
This information enables easy electronic billing for customers, saving them time at the facility and preventing backlogs.
Benefits of Automation for Waste Management Access Control
With hundreds of vehicles entering waste management facilities each day, these facilities often experience long queues. Limited lanes and staffing can make it difficult to quickly process vehicles as they enter. Vehicle recognition technology for access control automation can significantly improve operations and enable facilities to scale.
Improved Customer Experience
Automation eliminates the need to stop at a scale house upon entering a facility, reducing the time vehicles spend in a queue. It can significantly reduce the time per transaction, opening up more capacity.
Increased Visibility
By improving the connectivity of scales, ALPR cameras, and the internal scalehouse systems, staff can access more facility data that can help identify trends, address issues, and implement changes.
Operational Efficiencies
With automated screening, transactions require less manual intervention and oversight. Scale house operators could access historical data on specific vehicles and only flag vehicles in need of review.
Improved Site Safety
At some waste management sites, drivers or scale house operators are required to leave their vehicle or building to make a payment or inspect incoming loads. Automation supports a safer experience and limits site liability by eliminating the need for manual payments and inspections.
Looking Ahead: Waste Management Operations
As waste facilities look for ways to handle growing volumes, reduce manual effort, and improve the customer experience, access control automation offers one of the fastest paths to measurable impact. ALPR and weigh-in-motion technology not only streamline day-to-day operations, they help waste management teams scale efficiently, operate more safely, and improve the customer experience. For facilities looking to modernize, vehicle recognition technology provides a practical, proven method for automating access control and billing.
