Smart sweeping

Municipality of Utrecht

To correctly determine when and where sweepers operate in the city, we ensure that relatively little waste is visible in public spaces and contribute to a cleaner city.

Last change on 12th of July 2024, at 9:59 (CET) | Publication Standard 1.0

• Publication category: Impactful algorithms
• Impact assessment: DPIA, ...
• Status: In use

General information

Theme

Public Order and Safety

Begin date

-

Contact information

[e-mail]

Responsible use

Goal and impact

Predicting the most useful driving routes of sweepers

Considerations

Results Uthiek Assessment: with this approach, we encourage timely waste collection in the city. By doing so, we contribute to the Health value, as less waste leads to a cleaner city and living environment. In addition, waste truck employees still have the choice to deviate from the proposed driving route. By deciding for themselves where waste should be collected at a particular time. This increases the employee's freedom of choice and contributes to the value Autonomy.

Human intervention

The algorithm (with direct impact on Utrecht residents and their living environment) only serves as a source of information for an employee, who takes the right follow-up step based on this information and the context of the situation. This principle is included in our Utrecht framework Internal Guidelines for Algorithm Application.

Risk management

The Utrecht data scientists, Information and Process Advisors (IPA) and Decentralised Information Security Officers (DISO) within the Utrecht municipality have a controlling and monitoring role in the application of the algorithm, in addition to the employees directly involved. By doing so, we want to prevent the following risks from occurring:

- data leak by making personal data of Utrecht residents publicly available

- algorithm takes a decision completely independently, without the intervention of an employee and without interpreting the relevant context of the situation

- 'function creep' regarding data in the application of the algorithm, causing the algorithm to give a distorted picture of what is going on. This can occur because the same type of data is used when applying the algorithm, and the algorithm uses that as confirmation for what comes out as information

Impact assessment

• Utrechts Uthiek Assessment
• Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA)

Operations

Data

- routes for sweepers

- schedule of sweepers

- overview of waste collection locations

- waste notification