Estimating Time Spent at the Waste Collection Point by A Garbage Truck with A Multiple Regression Model

Abstract

The planning of the garbage trucks’ routes is an essential process in waste collection companies. The main issues in garbage truck routing are determining the optimal routes, minimizing time, decreasing the costs, and reducing the pollution’s emission. In the literature, the time spent at a waste collection point (WCP) is considered as the average time, or it is not included at all. Time spent at a WCP is determined by the processes of picking up, emptying, and putting down the waste containers and the factors specific for different WCPs. Those factors impact the time spent at WCP significantly. Excluding time spent at a WCP or taking the average of that in the planning approach may lead to the inaccurate estimation of total collection time. The aim of this article is to present the multiple regression model for estimating time spent at a WCP. We analyzed the impact of the WCP factors (i.e., building type and number of containers) on the time that a garbage truck spends at it. We initially considered seven chosen factors, five categorical and two numerical. Based on this, we developed the multiple regression model based on linear regression use. Later, the proposed model was validated based on data obtained from the municipal company operating in Wroclaw city, Poland. The study confirmed that the defined factors significantly affect garbage truck’s time spent at a WCP and should be taken into account during waste collection planning processes’ performance.