A model enhancement approach for optimizing the integrated shift scheduling and vehicle routing problem in waste collection

Philippe De Bruecker, Jeroen Beliën, Liesje De Boeck, Simon De Jaeger and Erik Demeulemeester

European Journal of Operational Research, 2018, vol. 266, issue 1, 278-290

Abstract: This paper presents a model enhancement approach for the integrated problem of developing shift schedules and waste collection routes. Given a variable amount of waste to be collected the objective is to find fixed, minimal cost shift schedules and collection routes under a service level constraint. While regular shifts during traffic peak hours are cheaper in terms of labour costs, the collection speed is on average lower than during expensive, non-regular shifts. Our findings can be summarized as follows. (1) Solutions can be found within reasonable computation time for real-life instances. (2) The model enhancement approach accurately estimates the required collection times and therefore consistently finds a feasible solution. (3) The solutions not only result in considerable savings, but are also proven to be (near)optimal by comparison with a practical lower bound based on flexible routes.

Keywords: Routing; Model enhancement; Waste collection; Shift scheduling (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0377221717307907
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ejores:v:266:y:2018:i:1:p:278-290

DOI: 10.1016/j.ejor.2017.08.059

Access Statistics for this article

European Journal of Operational Research is currently edited by Roman Slowinski, Jesus Artalejo, Jean-Charles. Billaut, Robert Dyson and Lorenzo Peccati

More articles in European Journal of Operational Research from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().