Simultaneous siting and routing in the disposal of hazardous wastes

The development of a system of storage facilities for spent fuel rods from commercial nuclear reactors requires solution of a model which simultaneously sites the storage facilities, assigns reactors to those facilities and chooses routes for the shipment of the spent fuel. The problem is multiobjective in its transportation component because shipment is made under two criteria: minimum transportation burden and minimum perceived risk. The authors blend methods of shortest paths, a zero-one mathematical program for siting, and the weighting method of multiobjective programming to show how to derive optimal solutions to this problem. Applications of the methodology demonstrate how transportation burden and risk influence location decisions and the dual role of siting/routing models in transportation policy analysis. The model is a prototype for the shipment and storage of any hazardous waste whose characteristics make the process of shipment itself an activity with risk.