Sanitation Workers

can nearly double their input.

In fast-growing Nairobi, potholes and traffic jams hinder delivery of public services. IBM researchers equipped the city’s fleet of garbage trucks with mobile phone trackers to monitor truck movements and allow fleet supervisors to track data on location and speed in real time. Department supervisors could identify problems on roadways as soon as drivers experienced them and suggest more efficient routes on the spot. As a result, garbage collection nearly doubled, from 800 to 1,400 metric tons per day.