Details
| Company | Multi-service company for refuse collection |
| Area | Refuse collection |
Optimization of Refuse Collection routes and rationalizing workloads
Aim
- overcome the unequal distribution of workloads of the teams and verify the possibility of making efficient use of the vehicles for the collection of waste.
Approach
The different geographical areas of the municipal area were analyzed and made comparable, based on each type of waste. To evaluate the workload over each area the following criteria were used:
- Average number of collections per shift
- weight in kg per shift
- average time dedicated to waste collection
- sum of the average time dedicated to activities other than collection (e.g. travel movements, stops, supplies, etc.)
- urban layout of the roads belonging to the different collection areas
The workload for each type of waste was evaluated, comparing the times on the different shifts.
The system, by means of simulation, was redesigned to evaluate the different travel/movement solutions in urban areas based on road characteristics and prevalence of the types of waste.
Main results
New distributions of collection shifts were formulated for each type of waste based on the following drivers:
- considering the perimeter and urban characteristics of the most critical areas
- balancing the load of individual work
- saturating the teams
- simplifying operations of the more complex shifts
New routes for collection vehicles were proposed which enable reduction in the number of vehicles in circulation, with equal amount of road coverage, with economic savings, optimization of resource utilization and reduction in environmental impact.