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They work for buses because buses follow set routes. There aren't overhead lines running through every single street. By comparison, garbage trucks do have to p

They work for buses because buses follow set routes. There aren't overhead lines running through every single street. By comparison, garbage trucks do have to patrol essentially every street. Putting overhead lines through every street may be more expensive than batteries.

wolverine876 4y ago
What do you think of my last point (in the GP)?
- Manuel_D 4y ago
  It's largely irrelevant. Having walked around Manhattan and seeing people leaving trash out, garbage trucks are going to be overwhelmingly active on side streets and not the major thoroughfares. The potential charging time gained from overhead lines will be minimal. Furthermore, most garbage trucks have mechanisms to load and unload garbage which would prevent them from mounting trolley poles.
  - wolverine876 4y ago
    Good point about the side streets, but you could still electrify where the trucks drive most often and not everything. The trolley poles could be mounted to the cab, it would seem.
    - Manuel_D 4y ago
      The issue is that garbage trucks drive serve each street equally often, for the most part. There's no streets where garbage trucks drive more often. It's not the situation that 20% of streets generate 80% of garbage that needs to be picked up [1]. It's block after block of townhomes and mid-rise apartments that are leaving out trash bags. Overhead lines inherently lend themselves to consolidated routes, but garbage disposal is the polar opposite of that. 1. High rise apartments generate a lot more trash, but they already have bulk garbage disposal systems and thus aren't part of the problem of picking up garbage bags off the street.
      - wolverine876 4y ago
        > It's not the situation that 20% of streets generate 80% of garbage that needs to be picked up Not that number exactly, but many streets or blocks have no trash - office buidings, the highrise apts you mention, parks, highways, etc. And it's time, not distance that matters - you can charge the trucks where they spend the most time. My point is that you don't need 100% coverage or likely near that. A drawback is that garbage pickup needs probably don't align with bus, snow plowing, or other needs, so ROI is lower for those wires.
        Manuel_D 4y ago
        Sure, much of Midtown doesn't have street trash pickup because skyscrapers have alternative garbage disposal infrastructure. The fact that 20% of streets don't produce trash doesn't alter the fact that the remaining 80% of streets have largely uniform trash distribution. There's no stretches of road where garbage trucks are spending significantly more time than others. The fact that it's time, not distance, that matters makes matters event worse: garbage trucks will spend a brief period of time on a major thoroughfare to get to their trash pickup zone, but then spend hours and and hours working through block and after block of residential and low density (for NYC) neighborhoods with no overlap between truck routes. There are no roads where you can deploy power lines that will charge garbage trucks for any significant stretch of time. The only place where garbage trucks do spend long stretches of time is the depot: and you just need normal EV charges there. The low-density, distributed nature of garbage pickup fundamentally is at odds with overhead lines.
        wolverine876 4y ago
        > The fact that 20% of streets don't produce trash doesn't alter the fact that the remaining 80% of streets have largely uniform trash distribution. What makes you say it's uniform? Skyscapers, businesses, and others not using public trash services aren't clustered on one street; you find them all over town. The number of stops per street can vary considerably.
        4y ago
- jcrawfordor 4y ago
  An additional problem, in addition to the major one that trash trucks don't spend any significant period of time on major streets or consolidated routes, is that there is no readily available product for dynamic rewiring of trolley poles. The operator would have to come to a complete stop, exit the vehicle, and align the poles each time they turned onto an electrified street. This would add considerable time to the route and create a traffic disruption and safety problem for the operators. This could probably be addressed with some robotics and machine vision, but that's a whole new technology to develop that would still require years to be ready for use at city scale. Overhead charging systems with automatic connection for buses have been developed by a couple of vendors (e.g. OppCharge) but are only used while stationary and have not achieved wide deployment. Wireless charging via pavement-embedded coils is actually a much better established technology and is in reasonably wide use for electric buses, but also hasn't been demonstrated in motion and is even more expensive to install than overhead catenaries.

wolverine876 4y ago

What do you think of my last point (in the GP)?

Manuel_D 4y ago
It's largely irrelevant. Having walked around Manhattan and seeing people leaving trash out, garbage trucks are going to be overwhelmingly active on side streets and not the major thoroughfares. The potential charging time gained from overhead lines will be minimal. Furthermore, most garbage trucks have mechanisms to load and unload garbage which would prevent them from mounting trolley poles.
- wolverine876 4y ago
  Good point about the side streets, but you could still electrify where the trucks drive most often and not everything. The trolley poles could be mounted to the cab, it would seem.
  - Manuel_D 4y ago
    The issue is that garbage trucks drive serve each street equally often, for the most part. There's no streets where garbage trucks drive more often. It's not the situation that 20% of streets generate 80% of garbage that needs to be picked up [1]. It's block after block of townhomes and mid-rise apartments that are leaving out trash bags. Overhead lines inherently lend themselves to consolidated routes, but garbage disposal is the polar opposite of that. 1. High rise apartments generate a lot more trash, but they already have bulk garbage disposal systems and thus aren't part of the problem of picking up garbage bags off the street.
    - wolverine876 4y ago
      > It's not the situation that 20% of streets generate 80% of garbage that needs to be picked up Not that number exactly, but many streets or blocks have no trash - office buidings, the highrise apts you mention, parks, highways, etc. And it's time, not distance that matters - you can charge the trucks where they spend the most time. My point is that you don't need 100% coverage or likely near that. A drawback is that garbage pickup needs probably don't align with bus, snow plowing, or other needs, so ROI is lower for those wires.
      - Manuel_D 4y ago
        Sure, much of Midtown doesn't have street trash pickup because skyscrapers have alternative garbage disposal infrastructure. The fact that 20% of streets don't produce trash doesn't alter the fact that the remaining 80% of streets have largely uniform trash distribution. There's no stretches of road where garbage trucks are spending significantly more time than others. The fact that it's time, not distance, that matters makes matters event worse: garbage trucks will spend a brief period of time on a major thoroughfare to get to their trash pickup zone, but then spend hours and and hours working through block and after block of residential and low density (for NYC) neighborhoods with no overlap between truck routes. There are no roads where you can deploy power lines that will charge garbage trucks for any significant stretch of time. The only place where garbage trucks do spend long stretches of time is the depot: and you just need normal EV charges there. The low-density, distributed nature of garbage pickup fundamentally is at odds with overhead lines.
        wolverine876 4y ago
        > The fact that 20% of streets don't produce trash doesn't alter the fact that the remaining 80% of streets have largely uniform trash distribution. What makes you say it's uniform? Skyscapers, businesses, and others not using public trash services aren't clustered on one street; you find them all over town. The number of stops per street can vary considerably.
        4y ago
jcrawfordor 4y ago
An additional problem, in addition to the major one that trash trucks don't spend any significant period of time on major streets or consolidated routes, is that there is no readily available product for dynamic rewiring of trolley poles. The operator would have to come to a complete stop, exit the vehicle, and align the poles each time they turned onto an electrified street. This would add considerable time to the route and create a traffic disruption and safety problem for the operators. This could probably be addressed with some robotics and machine vision, but that's a whole new technology to develop that would still require years to be ready for use at city scale. Overhead charging systems with automatic connection for buses have been developed by a couple of vendors (e.g. OppCharge) but are only used while stationary and have not achieved wide deployment. Wireless charging via pavement-embedded coils is actually a much better established technology and is in reasonably wide use for electric buses, but also hasn't been demonstrated in motion and is even more expensive to install than overhead catenaries.