2013 Session: 548

• Vehicle Routing of Urban Snow plowing Operations: Case Study for City of Edmonton, Canada
  Abstract: Canadian municipalities spend significant capital for snow plowing to provide safe and reliable mobility for road users. Any improvement in winter snow plowing will not only result in significant capital savings for road agencies, but also improve the safety and mobility of road users. The problem of routing for snow plowing operations is generally considered a network optimization problem in the existing research. However, the formulation and solution approaches can be very different and diverse, since each area has its own unique environmental conditions and operational constraints. Assuming a district and a single depot are given, the problem is to determine a set of routes that will ensure that all road links are serviced, all the operational constraints are satisfied and the total cost is minimized. This study presents a mathematical optimization model based on the Capacitated Arc Routing Problem (CARP) to minimize the total travel distance for winter road snow plowing in the City of Edmonton. A metaheuristic algorithm is used to solve this model. The model and algorithm are applied to a road sub-network for the south part of Edmonton, Canada. The results show that the model and algorithm are capable of achieving good solutions. Sensitivity analyses also show that the final results are sensitive to the depot location and number of routes. The proposed model needs to be expanded by considering more operational constraints in the City of Edmonton.
  Authors: Liu, Gang; Ge, Yongfeng; Qiu, Tony Z.; Soleymani, Hamid R.
  Authors: Liu, Gang; Ge, Yongfeng; Qiu, Tony Z.; Soleymani, Hamid R.
  Year: 2013
  Document Type: Paper
  Subject: Maintenance and Preservation; Safety and Human Factors
  Session: 548
  Paper Number: 13-0491
• Snowplow Routing Optimization Under Resource Constraints:Formulation, Algorithm, and Decision-Support System
  Abstract: Snow control is a key component of the winter maintenance responsibilities of many urban and regional agencies, especially in jurisdictions with heavy snowfall. Main activities involve routing snow plow trucks to plow roadways and spreading salt/chemicals via these trucks. In this paper, a mixed integer linear program (MILP) model is proposed to minimize the total operation time of all snow plow trucks needed to complete a given set of snow routes, and to reduce the longest individual truck time. To solve this problem, a set of customized construction and local search methods are developed and applied to an empirical case study. The computational results show that the proposed solution approach is able to solve the problem efficiently. The proposed models and algorithms are incorporated into the development of a state-of-art snow plow routing software that helps planners optimize snow routes and evaluate resource allocation options.
  Authors: Hajibabai, Leila; Nourbakhsh, Seyed Mohammad; Ouyang, Yanfeng; Peng, Fan
  Authors: Hajibabai, Leila; Nourbakhsh, Seyed Mohammad; Ouyang, Yanfeng; Peng, Fan
  Year: 2013
  Document Type: Paper
  Subject: Maintenance and Preservation; Safety and Human Factors
  Session: 548
  Paper Number: 13-0795
• Optimal Routing for Minimum Service Time of Winter Road Maintenance with Truck Capacity and Fleet Size Constraints
  Abstract: To improve road safety under adverse weather (e.g., snow and ice condition), a designated network have to be anti-iced/de-iced before and/or after the arrival of a snow storm or freezing rain. A model is developed to optimize vehicle routing that minimizes the service time needed for anti-icing/anti-icing/de-icing operation, subject to truck capacity and fleet size constraints. With network transformation techniques and the fair workload concept, the study vehicle routing problem can be solved via dynamic programming (DP). The solution approach was tested on a general network with practical operational data. The results are promising and computationally efficient. A sensitivity analysis is conducted by varying the model parameters, including fleet size, truck capacity and operating speed.
  Authors: Chien, I-Jy; Yu, Haifeng
  Authors: Chien, I-Jy; Yu, Haifeng
  Year: 2013
  Document Type: Paper
  Subject: Maintenance and Preservation; Safety and Human Factors
  Session: 548
  Paper Number: 13-2287
• Estimation of Maintenance Fleet Size for Spreading Operations Considering Road Geometry, Weather, and Traffic
  Abstract: Plowing and salt spreading are the most common counter-measures for snowy and icy pavement surfaces. To help highway maintenance authorities with better planning and allocation of winter highway maintenance resources, this research introduces an analytical model to estimate the required number of spreading trucks to complete the spreading operation within the service time by considering road geometry, weather and traffic. The complexity of the spreading problem lies in dealing with the non-uniform road geometry of each road section, different spreading patterns depending on the road geometry, dynamic traffic speeds under different weather and traffic conditions and the situation with heterogeneous spreading truck capacity for the spreading operations. In this study, a spreading model is developed and applied to a maintenance yard with three road sections in New Jersey. It was found that the developed model is fairly flexible to implement and easy to capture the diverse operational conditions, such as geographical location, climatic and weather conditions, equipment and etc.
  Authors: Chien, I-Jy; Gao, Shengyan; Meegoda, Jay N.; Marhaba, Taha
  Authors: Chien, I-Jy; Gao, Shengyan; Meegoda, Jay N.; Marhaba, Taha
  Year: 2013
  Document Type: Paper
  Subject: Maintenance and Preservation; Safety and Human Factors
  Session: 548
  Paper Number: 13-3119
• Development and Evaluation of Snowplow Instrumentation and Data Collection System
  Abstract: Removal of ice and snow from road surfaces is a critical task in the northern tier states of the United States. Most of the research effort in the snow and ice control area is focused on application of chemical and roadway pretreatment techniques. Plowing is the only technique that effectively removes snow from roadways, and it is imperative that this technique should be studied to maximize its efficiency and effectiveness. In this study instrumentation and data collection system for front mounted Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT) snow plow truck was developed, the system included twelve strain gauges, twelve control modules, a data acquisition system, a rear view camera, and a front view camera that is capable of recording GPS and truck speed. After being calibrated the strain gauges were installed on an Alaskan snow plow, and the system was evaluated with dry runs on asphalt and concrete pavements and soil-dry runs on concrete pavements. The instrumentation and data collection system was fully functional and distinguished between external field factors: pavement type, blade saver option (on/off), and dry soil plowing. A reduction in stresses developed in the snow plow and the carrier structure was observed for asphalt pavement compared to concrete pavement, and when the blade saver option was on.
  Authors: Mahmoud, Enad; Elhouar, Souhail; Dragoo, Drew; Sugisawa, Cliff; Peters, Tim
  Authors: Mahmoud, Enad; Elhouar, Souhail; Dragoo, Drew; Sugisawa, Cliff; Peters, Tim
  Year: 2013
  Document Type: Paper
  Subject: Maintenance and Preservation; Safety and Human Factors
  Session: 548
  Paper Number: 13-3697
• Estimation of Maintenance Fleet Size for Spreading Operations Considering Road Geometry, Weather, and Traffic
  Authors: Chien, Steven I-Jy
  Authors: Chien, Steven I-Jy
  Year: 2013
  Document Type: Presentation; Poster
  Subject: Maintenance and Preservation; Safety and Human Factors
  Session: 548
  Paper Number: 13-3119
• Optimal Routing for Minimum Service Time of Winter Road Maintenance with Truck Capacity and Fleet Size Constraints
  Authors: Chien, Steven I-Jy
  Authors: Chien, Steven I-Jy
  Year: 2013
  Document Type: Presentation; Poster
  Subject: Maintenance and Preservation; Safety and Human Factors
  Session: 548
  Paper Number: 13-2287
• Optimal Routing for Minimum Service Time of Winter Road Maintenance with Truck Capacity and Fleet Size Constraints
  Authors: Yu, Haifeng
  Authors: Yu, Haifeng
  Year: 2013
  Document Type: Presentation; Poster
  Subject: Maintenance and Preservation; Safety and Human Factors
  Session: 548
  Paper Number: 13-2287