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Priority Waste reports improved service, cameras and portal tools as complaints drop in Madison Heights
Summary
Priority Waste told the council the fleet problems that followed a July contract transition have been largely addressed, with cameras and GPS now on trucks, a portal for DPW staff to track incidents, and call volumes down to about five to 10 missed-stop reports per week.
Priority Waste representatives on Dec. 9 told the Madison Heights City Council that service has stabilized after a rocky transition earlier in the year and outlined new technology and processes to reduce missed pickups and speed responses.
Dan Day, speaking for Priority Waste, said the company inherited a degraded fleet after taking over service and that many trucks required permanent repairs. "When we walked in July 1st ... 47% of the fleet was down day 1," Day said, adding that as of the update the company was "in a really, much better position asset wise" and expected to replace the oldest vehicles over the next 3 to 5 years.
Day described several steps Priority has taken: adding cameras and GPS to trucks (up to six cameras per vehicle), implementing a two-way portal for the city's Department of Public Services (DPW) to file and track complaints with video/photo evidence, improved branding and repainting over multiple years, and updated "communication at the curb" tags that explain why an item was not collectible.
"What you should be seeing is, better quality trucks on your roadways, not leaking fluids or trash outside the bottoms ... because we're permanently fixing the ones that we're keeping," Day told council.
Performance metrics and response times Day said call volume for missed stops has fallen to an average of five to 10 calls per week over the previous six weeks. He described Priority's contractual service-level expectation as response ‘‘within 24 hours'' for reported issues and said that the portal and on-board cameras have allowed some complaints to be resolved the same day. "The communication through the portal speeds that up dramatically," he said.
The company plans to train Madison Heights DPW staff on the portal so municipal staff can see video and timestamps and extract incident reports. That dashboard data can be used for regular reporting to city officials, Day said, and he agreed city staff could share the update and portal statistics with residents via city social media channels.
Other operational notes and resident guidance - Holiday-season and seasonal yard-waste volumes contributed to earlier delays, Day said; he expects fewer service interruptions in the winter months when yard waste demand drops. - Priority provides two customer contact numbers (the local number 586-228-1200 and a toll-free number 855-927-4365) and maintains a municipal page with collection calendars and contact forms. - Priority discussed options for organics/food-scrap composting, noting other nearby communities accept food scraps mixed with yard waste at regional compost sites and that door‑to‑door organics programs exist in some cities as subscription services.
Council members asked about comparing Priority's response performance to other communities and about contract renewal opportunities. Day said each municipality is different but that Priority has renewed contracts with multiple nearby communities and prefers to negotiate extensions where possible rather than sending services to competitive bid.
"We do have those cameras ... so our logistics driver coordinator in our office can watch the service as it's occurring on the road in real time as well as pull recorded video," Day said, describing how portal evidence allows faster, documented resolutions.
Ending: City and Priority officials said DPW staff will be trained on the portal in the coming days and that Priority will continue to provide periodic updates on performance and any service changes.
