ROUTING OF SOLID WASTE COLLECTION VEHICLES. APPENDIX B: A HEURISTIC SOLUTION TO THE M-POSTMEN'S PROBLEM

This paper presents the theory and procedure of an algorithm which routes a known number of solid waste collection vehicles on a city street network. The network is assumed to be planar and connected and consists of only undirected edges (two-way streets). Each edge has a cost and load associated with it. The purpose of the procedure is to route the vehicles from a depot to a collection area (district), through the district and back to the depot. The algorithm determines districts and tours simultaneously. For each tour it lists a sequence of nodes and specifies whether the edge leading to each node is traveled or serviced. Computational experience shows that the algorithm is feasible for a network with as many as 90 nodes.