Atlanta-based Rubicon Global has entered a public-private partnership with the City of Atlanta to help the city improve its residential waste and recycling services via a cloud-based technology platform. During a six-month pilot program, the City of Atlanta will equip its fleet with Rubicon’s technology to capture data points related to waste, vehicle maintenance, service confirmation and more.

“This program is going to help two aspects of the Atlanta City Government: the department of public works and the policymakers who are trying to chart broad policy guideposts for the city as it becomes a 21^st century city of the future,” says Michael Allegretti, director of public policy for Rubicon Global.

Throughout the duration of the pilot program, Rubicon will work on empowering the city’s public works department through analysis and utilization of the cloud-based platform, improving the city’s solid waste division by making it more efficient and effective and helping the city establish a more credible baseline of current diversion rates, recycling rates and overall volumes of materials, according to Allegretti.

“We are excited to work with Atlanta-based company Rubicon to explore new technologies for innovation in our waste management systems, said Mayor Kasim Reed in a press release. “We have ambitious, clear goals for improving efficiency and increasing recycling rates and effectiveness. This unique partnership with Rubicon will open new opportunities and support our conservation efforts.”

Rubicon has begun training members of the department of public works on the cloud-based platform and will continue educating and training members of the city to ensure that everyone is comfortable with the platform. In addition to those efforts, Rubicon will work hand-in-hand with the City of Atlanta to improve safety efforts.

“Safety is the number one issue within our industry and our technology will also help improve the city’s safety efforts,” says Allegretti. “We are just at the tip of the iceberg when it comes to discovering what having more data and having more transparency will mean for the future of the industry, and I am excited to see where this partnership leads us.”