PortaPottyBossPro Blog — Weekly Service Scheduling

Event Porta Potty Service: Pumping During and After the Crowd

Short Window, Heavy Use

Construction sites, as covered in Servicing Porta Potties on Construction Sites: Crew Size, Access and Rhythm, are a long, steady rhythm. Events are the opposite. Hundreds or thousands of people use a row of units over a few hours or a few days, and the window to service them is narrow. If a construction unit is a little full on Thursday, the crew grumbles. If festival units are full on Saturday afternoon, the crowd posts photos.

Event service takes planning before the event, a clear schedule during it, and a clean finish after.

Plan the Service Before Delivery

Before the units arrive, settle the service plan with the organizer:

• How many days the event runs and the hours it is open.
• Expected attendance per day.
• Whether units need service during the event or just at the end.
• When service can happen: before gates open, after close, or during a lull.
• Where the pump truck can park and how it gets to each bank of units.

Put the answers on the job in the placement and access notes so the driver has them. A festival with three banks of units in three different fields needs notes for each.

Daily Service for Multi-Day Events

Multi-day events usually need service every day. In PortaPottyBossPro, a service with one day between visits brings the site due again each morning on the Waiting List. Assign it to a truck early in the route so the units are clean before the crowd arrives. If the event has a quiet window in the middle of the day, an extra pump-out can be added as its own job.

For large events, a truck may spend most of its day at one site. The dispatch board shows that truck's day and its totals of stops and dollars, so you can see whether other routes need to be covered by another truck.

One-Day Events

A one-day event may not need service during the event at all if the units are sized properly. What it needs is a final pump before pickup, or a pump-and-clean on site if the units are going to another event right away. Schedule the pickup and the final service as jobs and assign them to the truck that will be in the area the next morning.

Hand Wash Stations and Trailers

Events often include hand wash stations and restroom trailers. Hand wash stations need fresh water, soap and gray water pumped, and they run out faster than people expect at food events. Restroom trailers take longer to service and may need an attendant check during a long event. List each unit type on the job so the driver knows what is on site before arriving. Servicing Hand Wash Stations Alongside Your Porta Potties and Restroom Trailer Service: Scheduling the Units That Take the Longest cover each one.

Keep the Organizer Informed

Event organizers are busy on event day. Arrival texts let them know the truck is on site without a phone call, and the customer app lets them see where the truck is on the route. If the organizer needs extra service in the middle of the event, they can request it from the app or text the office.

Watch the Rest of the Route

A big event can swallow a truck for most of a day, which means the regular weekly sites that truck usually covers need a home. Before event week, look at the Waiting List for sites that will come due on event days and move them to another truck or another day within their due window. The colors make it easy to see which sites have room to wait and which ones are already close to overdue.

If you only run one or two trucks, it may make sense to service weekly routes early in the week and keep event days light. Planning that ahead is far easier than explaining a missed visit to a contractor because of a festival.

Billing Events

Events are often billed up front or on completion. Put the delivery, each service visit, any extra pump-outs and the pickup on the job so the invoice reflects what you did. With a card on file, the invoice can be charged when the job is completed.

After the Event

After the pickup, end the service so the site stops coming due. Review the photos and notes from the event and record what you learned for next year: how many units were enough, when the rush came, and where the truck could park. To see how event service fits with weekly routes on the same map, visit PortaPottyBossPro portable toilet service scheduling software.