Truck route optimization in Karbala city for solid waste collection

Abstract

The Solid Waste Management topic has assumed a large dimension in the present time due to rapid urbanization improved standards of living and concern for environmental quality the solid wastes collection and transportation are considered as one of the important elements of any solid waste management system. Many stated that a substantial shear of the total expenditure on solid waste management is spent on collection as such any improvements in the designing of collection system could result in substantial savings in cost. In Karbala the solid waste collection from the different regions, transfer and transport to the sanitary landfills are carried out by Municipality of Karbala. During the field survey it is noticed that the solid waste collection and transferring are accomplished by old manners and there is no program for solid waste management concerning the routs of the collection vehicles to achieve an efficient collection. Hence, and from this point of view, this study is initiated upon the request by Municipality of Karbala. The area under study constitutes of three districts in Karbala, namely, [Shohadaa AL-Molhaq and Dhobat AL-Usra]. These three distrctis are selected for their variety in activities (residential areas, hospital, laboratories, restaurant, etc.,). The field survey is executed for the area under study and the length of main and branch streets are determined. Moreover, the quantity Of solid waste generated daily is defined according to the collection vehicles load, taking the population density and the activity nature into consideration. Three plans for the districts in the area under study are prepared. These plans show the streets and nodes which represent the intersection points. Each street is defined by two nodes (start and end nodes) and the quantity of solid wastes generated from each street, is distributed to represent the load (flow) at start and end notes. All this information is used as input data for QSB program which treats these data mathematically to find three different solutions. Each solution represents a suggested rout for collection vehicles according to certain objective function.