Optimization of a Capacitated Vehicle Routing Problem for Sustainable Municipal Solid Waste Collection Management Using the PSO-TS Algorithm

Qingqing Qiao, Fengming Tao, Hailin Wu, Xuewei Yu and Mengjun Zhang
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Qingqing Qiao: College of Mechanical Engineering, Chongqing University, Chongqing 400044, China
Fengming Tao: School of Management Science and Real Estate, Chongqing University, Chongqing 400044, China
Hailin Wu: College of Mechanical Engineering, Chongqing University, Chongqing 400044, China
Xuewei Yu: College of Mechanical Engineering, Chongqing University, Chongqing 400044, China
Mengjun Zhang: College of Mechanical Engineering, Chongqing University, Chongqing 400044, China

IJERPH, 2020, vol. 17, issue 6, 1-22

Abstract: Sustainable management of municipal solid waste (MSW) collection has been of increasing concern in terms of its economic, environmental, and social impacts in recent years. Current literature frequently studies economic and environmental dimensions, but rarely focuses on social aspects, let alone an analysis of the combination of the three abovementioned aspects. This paper considers the three benefits simultaneously, aiming at facilitating decision-making for a comprehensive solution to the capacitated vehicle routing problem in the MSW collection system, where the number and location of vehicles, depots, and disposal facilities are predetermined beforehand. Besides the traditional concerns of economic costs, this paper considers environmental issues correlated to the carbon emissions generated from burning fossil fuels, and evaluates social benefits by penalty costs which are derived from imbalanced trip assignments for disposal facilities. Then, the optimization model is proposed to minimize system costs composed of fixed costs of vehicles, fuel consumption costs, carbon emissions costs, and penalty costs. Two meta-heuristic algorithms, particle swarm optimization (PSO) and tabu search (TS), are adopted for a two-phase algorithm to obtain an efficient solution for the proposed model. A balanced solution is acquired and the results suggest a compromise between economic, environmental, and social benefits.

Keywords: municipal solid waste collection; sustainable management; capacitated vehicle routing problem; two-phase algorithm (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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