Waste collection with smart bins and residual capacity forecasting: the case of an Apulia Town

In most countries, Municipal solid waste (MSW) collection and disposal are among the major problems of the urban environment. To this concern, the Key Enabling Technologies of Industry 4.0 (I4.0) play a crucial role. The I4.0 brings the new industrial paradigm in the smart cities, with strong cooperation of the digital and physical worlds through the cyber-physical systems. In particular, the intelligent bins (so-called smart bins) allow monitoring and provide real-time information on their capacity use. If, on the one hand, the MSW collection process is a topic widely investigated in the scientific literature, on the other hand, the studies on the adoption of the smart bins in MSW collection aren't that widespread. A technical-economic assessment of the implementation of the MSW collection based on the dynamic vehicle routing led by smart bins for a southern Italian town is proposed in the present work. The study evaluates the impact on the MSW collection considering the changes in terms of frequency of bins collected and dynamic vehicle routing, given by the residual capacity data provided from smart bins. To this concern, the costs and the emission due to MSW collection are minimized conducting a scenario analysis finalized to identify the proper service level to the citizenship, under municipal regulations, forecasting the residual capacity of each smart bin. Results of the case study showed that the adoption of the smart bins leads to significant benefits in both economic and environmental terms, providing proper service level for citizens.