Optimizing locations of waste transfer stations in rural areas

PLoS One. 2021 May 21;16(5):e0250962. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0250962. eCollection 2021.

Abstract

Many studies have considered the location of rural waste transfer stations, but most have omitted the impact of transportation network conditions. Traffic accessibility must be considered in optimizing the location of rural waste transfer stations, which is an important difference from the location of rural waste transfer stations. On the basis of previous studies, this study will consider the impact of traffic network on the optimization locations of waste transfer station in the rural areas. The objective of this study was to ensure the minimum Euclidean distance between the waste transfer station and the population center is the maximum, minimize the garbage transportation cost of each population center, construction costs for waste transfer stations, construction and upgrade costs for roads on a traffic network. A multi-objective facility location-network design model and an improved multi-objective simulated annealing algorithm was used to solve the problem. A detailed practical case study was used to illustrate the application of the proposed mathematical model. The results show that transportation network plays an important role in facility location optimization, and the improvement of traffic network conditions can greatly reduce waste transportation costs.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Algorithms
  • Garbage
  • Models, Theoretical
  • Refuse Disposal / methods*
  • Transportation / methods
  • Waste Management / methods*

Grants and funding

This work was supported by the Key Scientific Research Projects of Colleges and Universities in Henan Province [Grant number 21A170006], Soft Science Research of Technology Development Projects of Henan Province [Grant number 192400410085].