Fleet Selection for Solid Waste Collection Systems

Presently, collection of solid waste is much more expensive than its disposal. Most municipal collection fleets are made up of packer trucks that service areas with dissimilar topography, population density, and waste generation rates. When vehicles are selected for solid waste collection fleets there is usually very little consideration given to providing the required service at minimum cost. One possibility for minimizing collection costs is to select a fleet of various-sized packer trucks, while simultaneously satisfying the service constraints. To illustrate this approach, the waste collection system of a large metropolitan area is analyzed for proper fleet size and type of packer vehicle. Selection of the optimal fleet size and type of packer truck is formulated and solved as a linear programming problem.