Models and Algorithms for the Integrated Planning of Bin Allocation and Vehicle Routing in Solid Waste Management

Abstract

The efficient organization of waste collection systems based on bins located along the streets involves the solution of several tactical optimization problems. In particular, the bin configuration and sizing at each collection site as well as the service frequency over a given planning horizon have to be decided. In this context, a higher service frequency leads to higher routing costs, but at the same time less or smaller bins are required which lead to lower bin allocation investment costs. The bins used have different types and different costs and there is a limit on the space at each collection site as well as a limit on the total number of bins of each type that can be used. In this paper we consider the problem of designing a collection system consisting in the combination of a vehicle routing and a bin allocation problem in which the trade-off between the associated costs has to be considered. The solution approach combines an effective VNS metaheuristic for the routing part with a MILP-based exact method for the solution of the bin allocation part. We propose hierarchical solution procedures in which the two decision problems are solved in sequence, as well as an integrated approach where the two problems are considered simultaneously. Extensive computational testing on synthetic and real-world instances with hundreds of collection sites show the benefit of the integrated approaches with respect to the hierarchical ones.

Soft computing methods for multiobjective location of garbage accumulation points in smart cities

“…Explicit costs were not taken into account. Hemmelmay et al [17] introduced the Waste Bin Allocation and Routing Problem, which was solved applying different methodologies that combine sequential and simultaneous strategies; the allocation was solved either with an exact or an heuristic method, while the routing was solved using Variable Neighborhood Search.…”

Waste Collection in Urban Areas: A Case Study

“…In contrast, the tactical level included optimizing day to day activities and executing the strategic decisions. In particular, several papers, such as Sahoo et al (2005), Das and Bhattacharyya (2015), are devoted to the computation of the optimal routing of vehicles; while others, such as Hemmelmayr et al (2013), Mansini and Speranza (1998), are focused on the definition of the optimal emptying frequency for each dumpster, and addressing it to solve the periodic capacitated arc routing problem Chu et al (2006). In this paper, we consider the less explored tactical problem of scheduling and routing waste collection, without imposing a fixed voiding Fadda, Gobbato, Perboli, Rosano and Tadei: Waste collection in urban areas: a case study 4 Article submitted to Interfaces; manuscript no.…”

Model and algorithm for bilevel multisized terminal location‐routing problem for the last mile delivery

“…For the applications, some fields were presented in the previous studies, including drink and food distribution (Govindan et al., ), blood bank location (Or and Pierskalla, ), newspaper distribution (Jacobsen and Madsen, ), waste collection (Hemmelmayr et al., ), parcel delivery (Wasner and Zäpfel, ), military applications (Murty and Djang, ), and so forth.…”

“…With regard to the solution methods, both exact algorithms and heuristics were proposed. The exact algorithms display good performance only on small‐sized instances (Baldacci et al., , 2013; Perboli et al., ; Contardo et al., , ; Hemmelmayr et al., ; Jepsen et al., ; Santos et al., , ; Ponboon et al., ). With the problem size increasing, heuristics are the only viable alternatives.…”