Optimization of a municipal solid waste collection system

This paper deals with a problem of organizing a solid waste collection system in sparsely populated areas, with a special emphasis on optimizing the routes of the garbage trucks. The core of the problem being analysed is a vehicle routing problem. A plan for the weekly or daily routes was devised, using heuristic methods based on the savings concept, proposed by Clark & Wright. The model tackles within an integrated framework the problems of defining a schedule of visits to each place (for which the frequency of waste collection is a function of the quantity of waste produced) and of establishing the corresponding routes for the waste trucks. The model was applied to the case of waste collection in the municipality of Viseu, showing that the present situation can be significantly improved.