Role of Route Optimization in Benefiting Winter Maintenance Operations

Abstract

For winter maintenance purposes, the Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT) deploys a fleet of approximately 1,600 snowplow trucks that maintain 43,000 lane miles of roadway. These trucks are based out of 200 garages, yards, and outposts that also house a combined total of 650,000 tons of salt. The deployment of such a large number of trucks over a vast maintenance area creates an operational problem in determining the optimal maintenance routes and fleet size. Traditionally, ODOT has used county borders as maintenance boundaries for ODOT garages. However, by removing these borders and optimizing the snowplow routes, ODOT may benefit from significant time and cost savings. The results of this project provide ODOT a tool to determine the minimum number of trucks needed to maintain the necessary roadways within Districts 1, 2, and 10. In addition, the project recommends to ODOT a tool to assign assets to specific facilities and the most optimal routes for each truck in a district. This research indicates the possibility of reducing the fleet size within Districts 1, 2, and 10 by a total of 29 trucks while maintaining the same level of service. Apart from fleet size reduction, the route optimization can decrease the amount of time in which to treat each road in the three districts by 17 hours for one iteration.