Optimizing winter/snow removal operations in MoDOT St. Louis district : includes outcome based evaluation of operations.

The objective of this project was to develop fleet location, route decision, material selection, and treatment procedures for winter snow removal operations to improve MoDOT’s services and lower costs. This work uses a systematic, heuristic-based optimization approach to integrate the winter road maintenance planning decisions, which is typically the most intensive operation in the DOT maintenance system. The application of the solution methodology developed in this research to the transportation network of St. Louis District in Missouri resulted in optimal truck allocation and route decision policies. The optimal analysis allows MoDOT to provide the most efficient snow removal services, to develop specific service routes that trucks can follow, to compute standard lane mile factors to be applied, and to develop optimal truck allocation scenarios when additional budget reduction is unavoidable. All of these can be achieved with the minimal cycle time and deadheading miles. In particular, the results show the opportunities of cost savings by closing some maintenance buildings without losing the efficiency of high level service. In addition, the survey results and the authors' recommendations on the equipment selection and treatment procedures are presented.