A location-routing problem for the municipal solid waste management system

Date

2007

Author

Ayanoğlu, Cemal Can

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This study deals with a municipal solid waste management system in which the strategic and tactical decisions are addressed simultaneously. In the system, the number and locations of the transfer facilities which serve to the particular solid waste pick-up points and the landfill are determined. Additionally, routing plans are constructed for the vehicles which collect the solid waste from the pick-up points by regarding the load capacity of the vehicles and shift time restrictions. We formulate this reverse logistics system as a location-routing problem with two facility layers. Mathematical models of the problem are presented, and an iterative capacitated-k-medoids clustering-based heuristic method is proposed for the solution of the problem. Also, a sequential clustering-based heuristic method is presented as a benchmark to the iterative method. Computational studies are performed for both methods on the problem instances including up to 1000 pick-up points, 5 alternative transfer facility sites, and 25 vehicles. The results obtained show that the iterative clustering-based method developed achieves considerable improvement over the sequential clustering-based method.

URI

http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/2/12608230/index.pdf
https://hdl.handle.net/11511/16692

Collections

Graduate School of Natural and Applied Sciences, Theses