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Mathematical modelling and heuristic approaches to the location-routing problem of a cost-effective integrated solid waste management

  • S.I.: OR in Transportation
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Abstract

Integrated solid waste management (ISWM) comprises activities and processes to collect, transport, treat, recycle and dispose municipal solid wastes. This paper addresses the ISWM location-routing problem in which different types of municipal solid wastes are factored concurrently into an integrated system with all interrelated facilities. To support a cost-effective ISWM system, the number of locations of the system’s components (i.e. transfer stations; recycling, treatment and disposal centres) and truck routing within the system’s components need to be optimized. A mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) model is presented to minimise the total cost of the ISWM system including transportation costs and facility establishment costs. To tackle the non-deterministic polynomial-time hardness of the problem, a stepwise heuristic method is proposed within the frames of two meta-heuristic approaches: (i) variable neighbourhood search (VNS) and (ii) a hybrid VNS and simulated annealing algorithm (VNS + SA). A real-life case study from an existing ISWM system in Tehran, Iran is utilized to apply the proposed model and algorithms. Then the presented MILP model is implemented in CPLEX environment to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithms for multiple test problems in different scales. The results show that, while both proposed algorithms can effectively solve the problem within practical computing time, the proposed hybrid method efficiently has produced near-optimal solutions with gaps of < 4%, compared to the exact results. In comparison with the current cost of the existing ISWM system in the study area, the presented MILP model and proposed heuristic methods effectively reduce the total costs by 20–22%.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Dr. Mohammad Vahab (The University of New South Wales), Dr. Ahmed Hammad (Curtin University), Dr. Masoumeh Khalajmasoumi (Applied Geological Research Center of Geological Survey of Iran), and Dr. Hossein Aghighi (Shahid Beheshti University) for their technical comments on methodology and supports for data processing; and Ms. Neda Danesh for her valuable efforts in proofreading the paper.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, The University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, 2052, Australia

    H. Asefi, S. Lim & M. Maghrebi

  2. Department of Civil Engineering, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Mashhad, Iran

    M. Maghrebi

  3. School of Business IT and Logistics, RMIT University, Melbourne, VIC, 3000, Australia

    S. Shahparvari

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Correspondence to M. Maghrebi.

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Asefi, H., Lim, S., Maghrebi, M. et al. Mathematical modelling and heuristic approaches to the location-routing problem of a cost-effective integrated solid waste management. Ann Oper Res 273, 75–110 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10479-018-2912-1

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