We install the cameras, GPS and lift arm or PTO signals that let a city or hauler answer a missed pickup call with a record, in Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, Alabama, Florida and Mississippi.
It is a record, with a time and a place, showing what the truck did at an address and what the curb looked like when it got there.
Every sanitation office knows the call. A resident says the truck skipped their house. The only way to find out is to send a truck back, and the answer is often that the cart never made it to the curb. That return trip costs fuel and labor, and it slows down the rest of the route.
This page explains how proof of service works and what has to be installed on the truck to make it work. API Signal installs the cameras, GPS and sensors that proof of service depends on, in eight states: Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, Alabama, Florida and Mississippi.
It paid for cameras on its trucks that document blocked or missing carts, so it can stop sending trucks back when the city was not at fault.
In February 2023, High Point's City Council awarded a three-year, $225,937 contract to a company called Rubicon for technology that includes cameras mounted on its garbage and recycling trucks. The cameras can document when a toter was blocked by a parked vehicle or missing at an address. The city's public services director explained the reasoning: when customers call about a missed pickup, the city sends the truck back, which burns fuel, wears out equipment and slows the rest of the route. The goal was fewer repeat trips when the city was not at fault.
No single signal settles every dispute. Each one answers a different question, and the strongest records combine them, because each covers a gap in the others.
Shows the truck passed the address and slowed or stopped. A GPS point can show the truck was nearby, but not whether the cart was serviced.
A sensor on the arm, or the PTO signal from the truck, records that the arm cycled or the compactor ran, with a time and a location. Some systems use wireless arm sensors that do not depend on the truck's wiring.
A reader on the truck ties the lift to a specific cart and address and builds a history for that cart. It only works where the carts carry tags.
A photo or video shows the curb. A cart blocked by a parked car, or no cart at all, ends the argument faster than anything else.
Because a live view helps the driver but saves nothing, so it cannot settle a dispute later.
In 2017, Des Moines, Iowa, bought 17 camera systems for refuse trucks for $34,272 in total. The cameras gave the driver a live split screen view of the arm and the blind spots. The city's own paperwork noted that the systems had no recording capability. A live view helps the driver. It cannot settle a dispute, because nothing is saved.
If proof of service is the goal, the install has to include recording, and someone has to confirm each camera is actually recording before the truck leaves the yard.
Because the hardware is paid for up front and the software runs on top of it for years, so a poor install means paying every year for software that cannot see.
When Birmingham, Alabama's council approved a three-year contract with the software company Routeware, the city agreed to pay $491,254.60 in the first year, $303,495 in the second and $327,894 in the third. The public works director said the first year cost more because of the initial hardware, with the later years covering software. A tablet in every truck was part of the plan.
In Birmingham's case, the hardware is a front-loaded cost. The cameras, sensors and wiring go in once, and the software runs on top of them for years. New trucks can arrive with cameras from the factory. The trucks already on your routes were not built that way. They need someone to retrofit them, and that is where we come in.
How long footage is kept, who can view it, and how public records rules apply, before the first truck rolls.
Cameras on city trucks are starting to do other jobs. In December 2025, Dallas approved a contract of about $2.56 million over three years to put AI-enabled cameras on 50 brush and bulk trucks, photographing curbside conditions to help find illegal dumping. The city says faces and license plates are blurred.
Whatever the cameras are for, decide three things before the first truck rolls: how long footage is kept, who is allowed to view it, and how your state's public records rules apply to it. Those rules vary by state and by city, so that conversation belongs with your city attorney.
Cameras, GPS and the wiring behind them, on trucks already in service, set up to send the signals your waste software asks for.
We install proof of service hardware on trucks already in service:
Your waste software decides which signals it wants. We install what it calls for and test that each signal reaches the screen before we leave. We are a Geotab certified installer among many others, and we also offer equipment, so you can get hardware and installation from one place.
No. A GPS point shows the truck was near the address, not that the cart was serviced. A lift arm or PTO signal, an RFID read or a camera image shows what actually happened.
For proof of service, yes. A live view helps the driver but saves nothing, so it cannot answer a complaint after the fact. We confirm each camera is recording before we leave.
Yes. Trucks already in service need a retrofit, and that is the work we do, at your yard or depot.
Your waste software decides which signals it wants. We install what it calls for and test that each signal reaches the screen.
Your city or company does, with your attorney, because public records rules vary by state and by city. We install the cameras and set them up to record.
Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, Alabama, Florida and Mississippi.
Constant. Ignition. Ground. API Signal.
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