IoT-based smart bin allocation and vehicle routing in solid waste management: A case study in South Korea

Abstract

Increasing waste generation has become a real challenge because of population growth and rapid urbanization. Given this, most waste bins get overfilled easily because of the improper management of waste and the irregular cleaning of waste bins. The internet of things (IoT) is a remarkable modern technology that offers powerful resolutions to modernize traditional systems. In this study, the filling level of waste bins is considered in conjunction with IoT-based waste bins. This paper develops an integrated IoT-based smart bin allocation with a central monitoring system (CMS) and enhanced vehicle routing algorithm in solid waste management. This article proposes the time-dependent penalty concept to waste management authorities if these waste bins are not emptied in time after becoming full. To obtain the solution with faster execution time, an intelligent variable neighborhood search with ant colony optimization method (VNS- ACO) is developed. The proposed model is illustrated with some numerical data, and a sensitivity analysis is established with some parameters. Furthermore, the superiority of our developed VNS-ACO algorithm is established through testing on some traveling salesman problem (TSP) instances in the traveling salesman problem library (TSPLIB). Results have been compared with an advanced version of genetic algorithm (GA) and ACO methods.