Vehicle Route Optimization for Solid Waste Management: A Case Study of Maltepe, Istanbul

Solid waste management, which includes collection, transportation, disposal and recycling, is a critical environmental issue increasing in severity due to industrialization, urban population growth and consumption. In this study, we present a vehicle routing approach based on the ant colony optimization algorithm. We work on the real-world data of Maltepe Municipality, Istanbul, Turkey. The experimental results show that we estimate the shortest route path with 13% efficiency compared to the existing route. We believe this would play an important role in solid waste management, help reduce costs as well as provide fast and efficient waste collection for local municipalities.