Scranton in Pennsylvania has signed a three-year smart city contract that will see Kentucky-based Rubicon’s products installed in its solid waste and recycling fleet to digitise operations and use real-time data to improve efficiency.

Rubicon is a digital marketplace for waste and recycling and a provider of software for businesses and governments worldwide. The three-year partnership with Scranton should help enhance its residential waste and recycling services.

The firm’s proprietary, cloud-based technology suite helps city governments run faster, smarter and more effective waste, recycling and heavy-duty municipal fleet operations. The platform includes a mobile app, an onboard data collection device and a web-based portal. Scranton’s goal is to digitise operations and gather and analyse real-time data to optimise its recurring solid waste and recycling routes.

As the sixth-largest city in Pennsylvania, Scranton has a population of nearly 80,000, and its fleet provides residential waste collection services for roughly 26,000 locations.

“Rubicon’s smart city technology will drive meaningful progress within Scranton’s public works operations,” said Paige Cognetti, mayor of Scranton. “Digitising our operations has been a long time coming, and we look forward to working with Rubicon to utilise the data and insights that these processes will reveal, generating opportunities for greater efficiencies in our overall daily workflow and service delivery for our residents.”

The manager portal will collect data and analytics, providing the city with route updates, daily reporting and operational insights, leading to more efficient operations, improved service for citizens and cost savings. A complementary product helps private waste and recycling haulers deliver customer service to commercial and residential customers through a similar feature set.

“Cities across the USA are reimagining their waste and recycling operations,” said Nate Morris, CEO of Rubicon. “Working with Rubicon, they can refine processes, improve services for residents, and save taxpayer dollars. Cities like Scranton are critical in helping to achieve a smart city vision that includes all corners of our country, beyond the coasts and outside of the biggest cities. We applaud the city’s leadership for its commitment to continuous improvement and look forward to a long and productive partnership.”

Michael Allegretti, chief strategy officer at Rubicon, added: “The city of Scranton has committed to transforming its government operations during the past few years and we are thrilled to play a role in helping the city’s leadership execute on its vision to deliver better, faster and more affordable core public services. Scranton demonstrates that cities of any size can be a part of the smart city movement and benefit from the gains delivered by innovative technology partnerships.”