A comprehensive study on solid waste vehicle routing and tracking — a case study on Kolkata city

Kolkata city generates about 3500 Metric Ton (MT) of solid waste per day. Waste collected at storage vats/containers is transported to disposal ground at Dhapa by Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) departmental vehicles and hired vehicles. Collection, segregation and transportation of municipal solid waste in KMC area is unplanned and chaotic; there is no uniformity in the size of containers/open vats and the size and haulage capacity of transport vehicles. The operational efficiency of KMC transport system is about 50%, with a fleet composed of 30–35% old vehicles. KMC spends 70–75% of its budget on collection of solid wastes, 20–25% on transportation and less than 5% on disposal. KMC allocates different types of collection vehicles to different types of containers/open vats depending on waste generation at a location and compatibility of the vehicles with the storage receptacles. It was, thus, a challenge to present an acceptable, realistic solution optimising the waste vehicle routes, thus cutting down on the transportation costs and increasing overall efficiency. ArcGIS Desktop has been used to determine least cost paths for collection and transportation of wastes; while low-cost tracking methods has been attempted using ArcGIS and Garmin 72H GPS set.