Addressing the Challenges of Planning Snow Plowing and Salt Spreading Routes in a Hybrid Rural and Urban Network

Winter maintenance problems have not been widely addressed in the literature. It can be explained by the complexity of the problems and the fact that the problems are often site-specific and numerous operational constraints have to be taken into account. This paper first describes a case study conducted in a city in the province of Quebec, Canada. An adaptive large neighborhood search metaheuristic was developed in order to design the snow plowing and salt spreading routes. It takes into account turn penalties, network hierarchy, and equipment availability. This method generates a solution within a reasonable time while taking into account the operational constraints. The algorithm can also be used to test various scenarios. The example of one truck breaking down is presented.

• Supplemental Notes:
  • This paper was sponsored by TRB committee AHD65 Winter Maintenance. Alternate title: Addressing the Challenges of Route Planning for Snowplowing and Salt Spreading on Hybrid Rural and Urban Network
• Corporate Authors:

  Transportation Research Board

  500 Fifth Street, NW
  Washington, DC  United States  20001
• Authors:
  • Quirion-Blais, Olivier
  • Trépanier, Martin
  • Langevin, André
• Conference:
  • Transportation Research Board 93rd Annual Meeting
  • Location: Washington DC
  • Date: 2014-1-12 to 2014-1-16
• Date: 2014

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Features: Maps; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 17p
• Monograph Title: TRB 93rd Annual Meeting Compendium of Papers

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Case studies; Deicing; Networks; Planning; Routes; Rural areas; Salts; Snowplows; Urban areas; Winter maintenance
• Geographic Terms: Quebec (Canada)
• Subject Areas: Highways; Maintenance and Preservation; Planning and Forecasting; I62: Winter Maintenance; I72: Traffic and Transport Planning;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01515496
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: 14-2039
• Files: TRIS, TRB, ATRI
• Created Date: Feb 24 2014 8:42AM