Optimization of snow plowing cost and time in an urban environment: A case study for the City of Edmonton

Abstract

Each winter, Canadian municipalities deploy significant capital for snow plowing. Any improvements to snowplow operations not only results in significant capital savings for municipalities and road agencies, but also improves roadway safety and user mobility. In the existing research, routing snowplow operations is generally considered a network optimization problem; however, the formulations and solutions can be very diverse, as each urban area has unique environmental conditions and operational constraints. For a specific district and depot, the problem is determining a set of routes that ensure that all road links are serviced, all operational constraints are satisfied, and total operational costs are minimized. This study used a mathematical optimization model based on the capacitated arc routing problem (CARP) to minimize the total travel distance for snowplow operations in the City of Edmonton. Depot location and route number are critical input parameters to the operation cost control. Sensitivity analyses were conducted to not only derive snowplow routing strategies using the CARP methodology, but also draw useful conclusions for winter road maintenance planners.