GIS approach in vehicle route optimization for residential recyclables collection

This paper focuses on evaluation of the Geographic Information Systems utilization for solving residential recyclables collection routing problems. Recyclables collection is considered as a part of reverse logistics to which a specific routing problem is connected. Recycling itself is one of the sustainable solutions intended for Smart Cities. Recycling rate increase in recent years and always high transportation costs are the main drivers for looking for the new methods how to optimize routing in residential recyclables collection. Geospatial relation of data by Geographic Information Systems software can be used to design and analyze the routing strategy. In this paper ArcGIS software and its Network Analyst extension is used to analyze potential routing improvement during one recyclables collection shift in El Paso, Texas, USA. Equation describing the time requirements for the process of recyclables collection with the consideration of effects of set-out rate and turns was established. Despite that the Network Analyst was not designed to solve high density routing tasks of this kind, an approach to obtain acceptable routing solution by this ArcGIS extension was developed. By applying this approach on the selected recyclables collection shift it was found that a comparable routing solution can be obtained.