Optimization of MSW Collection Routes Using GIS (Case Study: Tabriz City)

This research is conducted with the purpose of optimizing the Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) collecting routs in terms of time and cost at the comprehensive waste management. The Network Analysis toolbox of the ArcGIS software is utilized to evaluate the optimal waste collection routes. The total traveled length for waste collection after finding the optimal routes by the software was equal to 368 kilometers for each day, which would result in 25.76 percent thrift in comparison with the existing case (496 km). In the current system, 24 machines are being used in collecting the waste which will be done by 21 machines considering the optimized model and would result in 12.5 percent thrift in the number of cars. The results indicate that repositioning the collecting containers using GIS techniques has insignificant role, less than 0.02 percent, in time and traveled distance. key words: Waste, Optimization of Collection Routes, ArcGIS model, Dijkstra’s Algorithm.