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Vehicle Routing for Urban Snow Plowing Operations

Author

Listed:
  • Nathalie Perrier

    (Department of Mathematics and Industrial Engineering and GERAD, École Polytechnique de Montréal, Montréal, Québec, Canada H3C 3A7)

  • André Langevin

    (Department of Mathematics and Industrial Engineering and GERAD, École Polytechnique de Montréal, Montréal, Québec, Canada H3C 3A7)

  • Ciro-Alberto Amaya

    (Department of Industrial Engineering and PYLO, Universidad de los Andes, Bogotá, Colombia)

Abstract

Winter road maintenance planning involves a variety of decisions related to the routing of vehicles for spreading chemicals and abrasives, plowing roadways and sidewalks, loading snow into trucks, and transporting snow to disposal sites. In this paper, we present a model and two heuristic solution approaches based on mathematical optimization for the routing of vehicles for snow plowing operations in urban areas. Given a district and a single depot where a number of plows are based, the problem is to determine a set of routes, each performed by a single vehicle that starts and ends at the district's depot, such that all road segments are serviced while satisfying a set of operational constraints and minimizing a time objective. The formulation models general precedence relation constraints with no assumption on class connectivity, different service and deadhead speed possibilities, separate pass requirements for multilane road segments, class upgrading possibilities, and vehicle road segment dependencies. Several extensions, such as turn restrictions, load balancing constraints, and tandem service requirements, which are required in a real-life application, are also discussed. Two objectives are considered: A hierarchical objective and a makespan objective. The resulting model is based on a multicommodity network flow structure to impose the connectivity of the route performed by each vehicle. The two solution strategies were tested on data from the City of Dieppe, New Brunswick, Canada.

Suggested Citation

  • Nathalie Perrier & André Langevin & Ciro-Alberto Amaya, 2008. "Vehicle Routing for Urban Snow Plowing Operations," Transportation Science, INFORMS, vol. 42(1), pages 44-56, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:inm:ortrsc:v:42:y:2008:i:1:p:44-56
    DOI: 10.1287/trsc.1070.0195
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Cabral, Edgar Alberto & Gendreau, Michel & Ghiani, Gianpaolo & Laporte, Gilbert, 2004. "Solving the hierarchical Chinese postman problem as a rural postman problem," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 155(1), pages 44-50, May.
    2. Korteweg, Peter & Volgenant, Ton, 2006. "On the Hierarchical Chinese Postman Problem with linear ordered classes," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 169(1), pages 41-52, February.
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    Cited by:

    1. Aakil M. Caunhye & Nazli Yonca Aydin & H. Sebnem Duzgun, 2020. "Robust post-disaster route restoration," OR Spectrum: Quantitative Approaches in Management, Springer;Gesellschaft für Operations Research e.V., vol. 42(4), pages 1055-1087, December.
    2. Abdullah Rasul & Jaho Seo & Shuoyan Xu & Tae J. Kwon & Justin MacLean & Cody Brown, 2022. "Optimization of Snowplow Routes for Real-World Conditions," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(20), pages 1-17, October.
    3. Colombi, Marco & Corberán, Ángel & Mansini, Renata & Plana, Isaac & Sanchis, José M., 2017. "The Hierarchical Mixed Rural Postman Problem: Polyhedral analysis and a branch-and-cut algorithm," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 257(1), pages 1-12.
    4. Ohad Eisenhandler & Michal Tzur, 2019. "The Humanitarian Pickup and Distribution Problem," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 67(1), pages 10-32, January.
    5. Nguyen, Phuong H.D. & Tran, Daniel, 2024. "Constraint-Based snowplow optimization model for winter maintenance operations," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 179(C).
    6. Farzaneh, Mohammad Amin & Rezapour, Shabnam & Baghaian, Atefe & Amini, M. Hadi, 2023. "An integrative framework for coordination of damage assessment, road restoration, and relief distribution in disasters," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 115(C).
    7. Kaj Holmberg, 2019. "The (Over)zealous Snow Remover Problem," Transportation Science, INFORMS, vol. 53(3), pages 867-881, May.
    8. Xiaoguang Bao & Xinhao Ni, 2024. "Approximation algorithms for two clustered arc routing problems," Journal of Combinatorial Optimization, Springer, vol. 47(5), pages 1-12, July.
    9. Vidal, Thibaut & Laporte, Gilbert & Matl, Piotr, 2020. "A concise guide to existing and emerging vehicle routing problem variants," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 286(2), pages 401-416.
    10. Marco Colombi & Ángel Corberán & Renata Mansini & Isaac Plana & José M. Sanchis, 2017. "The Hierarchical Mixed Rural Postman Problem," Transportation Science, INFORMS, vol. 51(2), pages 755-770, May.
    11. Sullivan, James L. & Dowds, Jonathan & Novak, David C. & Scott, Darren M. & Ragsdale, Cliff, 2019. "Development and application of an iterative heuristic for roadway snow and ice control," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 127(C), pages 18-31.
    12. Sophie N. Parragh & Karl F. Doerner, 2018. "Solving routing problems with pairwise synchronization constraints," Central European Journal of Operations Research, Springer;Slovak Society for Operations Research;Hungarian Operational Research Society;Czech Society for Operations Research;Österr. Gesellschaft für Operations Research (ÖGOR);Slovenian Society Informatika - Section for Operational Research;Croatian Operational Research Society, vol. 26(2), pages 443-464, June.
    13. Melih Çelik & Özlem Ergun & Pınar Keskinocak, 2015. "The Post-Disaster Debris Clearance Problem Under Incomplete Information," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 63(1), pages 65-85, February.
    14. Sayarshad, Hamid R. & Du, Xinpi & Gao, H. Oliver, 2020. "Dynamic post-disaster debris clearance problem with re-positioning of clearance equipment items under partially observable information," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 138(C), pages 352-372.
    15. M. Çelik & H. Süral, 2016. "Order picking in a parallel-aisle warehouse with turn penalties," International Journal of Production Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 54(14), pages 4340-4355, July.
    16. Diego Cattaruzza & Nabil Absi & Dominique Feillet & Jesús González-Feliu, 2017. "Vehicle routing problems for city logistics," EURO Journal on Transportation and Logistics, Springer;EURO - The Association of European Operational Research Societies, vol. 6(1), pages 51-79, March.
    17. Rafael Martinelli & Claudio Contardo, 2015. "Exact and Heuristic Algorithms for Capacitated Vehicle Routing Problems with Quadratic Costs Structure," INFORMS Journal on Computing, INFORMS, vol. 27(4), pages 658-676, November.
    18. Shah, Nirav & Kumar, Subodha & Bastani, Farokh & Yen, I-Ling, 2012. "Optimization models for assessing the peak capacity utilization of intelligent transportation systems," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 216(1), pages 239-251.

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