Portable restroom rental stop survey: ten access checks

What to take away

General guidance only. Vehicle requirements, site access rules and waste handling are governed locally and by the site operator.

The ten questions to ask at booking

A route is only as good as the stops on it, and most route problems are really unsurveyed placements. The right time to answer the access questions is when the booking is taken, because the driver who arrives should not be discovering any of them.

Anything unanswered is not a stop, it is a risk. Grouping the answered stops into tanks and ordering them is a separate job, set out in the operating day end to end.

What the ten checks protect

Four checks decide whether the truck can reach its standing position. They are the gate width and whether it is ever locked, the surface and what it becomes after rain, the gradient at the standing position, and the overhead clearance from wires, canopies, structures, and low branches.

Three checks decide whether the work can be done once the truck arrives. Measure the distance from the standing position to each unit against your hose length. Look at turning and reversing space, and whether reversing can be avoided. Note site hazards: plant movements, excavation, live traffic, animals.

Three checks decide whether you can get in and out at all: who holds the key, the code, or the authority to admit you; the access hours, and whether they differ on weekends; and the way out. A truck that enters a site it cannot leave loaded is a very long afternoon.

The assumptions behind hose reach and standing position come from how the truck is equipped, which the checklist on what belongs on the truck covers. A survey answer that disagrees with those assumptions means the stop needs a different position or a different plan.

The stops that look fine and are not

Four patterns account for most surprises, and each has a known fix.

The first is prevented by a placement record with a photograph. The rest are prevented by asking the driver to re-survey a stop whenever anything about it changes. A construction site that changes shape between visits is the clearest case.

Deliveries and collections need their own survey

A delivery or a collection is not a lighter version of a service stop. It has different access requirements, it usually takes longer, and it often needs a different vehicle configuration. Survey the stop for the job it is, not the job before it.

Schedule them as their own work rather than squeezing them into gaps. In particular, collections at the end of a construction job are frequently harder than the original delivery, because the site has closed in around the unit. Run the ten checks again before a collection is promised.

What a missed check costs later

Distance between stops is the obvious cause of an inefficient route, but three quieter causes cost more.

All three are access problems, which means all three are prevented at survey rather than at dispatch. That is the argument for asking the ten questions at booking and not at the gate.

OSHA's recommended practices for safety and health programs hold that finding and fixing hazards before they cause injury or illness is a far more effective approach. A badly surveyed stop is a condition, and it repeats at every visit until somebody changes it.

Access survey removes more risk than any instruction does. The exposures on a route are vehicle movements, working beside traffic or plant, and manual handling at awkward placements, and a stop where the truck does not have to reverse has one whole hazard designed out.

Two related questions sit elsewhere. Where the wear from all that driving lands is covered in keeping the truck and the units working, and the permissions that govern where and how the vehicle may operate are set out in which authorities regulate this trade.

Re-survey and record

Survey a stop again whenever the site changes, and at least once a season on a long-running standing order. Construction sites change constantly and nobody thinks to mention it. A stop with a new gate, a new surface, or new hours is a new stop.

When a driver finds that access has changed, the rule is to record it, service what is reachable, and report the same day. Improvising a new standing position that nobody has assessed is the one thing to avoid.

Keep the survey answers, the placement photograph, and every exception with its cause. Sites that repeatedly generate exceptions are candidates for a new survey, a placement change, or a conversation about frequency. The IRS allows any recordkeeping system suited to the business that clearly shows income and expenses, and these records also settle a dispute about whether a visit happened.

Common questions

Should routing software plan the route?

It can plan the geography. It will not know your tank capacity, your access windows or which gate is locked on Fridays unless you tell it, and those are what actually shape the day.

How often should a stop be surveyed again?

Whenever the site changes, and at least once a season on a long-running standing order. Construction sites change constantly and nobody thinks to mention it.

Is it worth refusing a stop on access grounds?

Sometimes, yes. A placement that cannot be reached safely is not a discount question. Offer an alternative position, and if there is none, say so before the units are delivered rather than afterward.