Scientific paper ID 1994 : 2020/3

The present paper addresses the problem of collection and transportation of

domestic waste in urban areas. In the big cities, the modern lifestyle is characterized by the

generation of huge amount of waste. Waste collection and processing is one of the municipal

activities demanding big expenditure and facing practical difficulties (high exploitation costs –

fuel, maintenance, recycling, labor etc.) The transportation is an intermediate operation that

delivers the collected waste to the processing center. The type and number of the specialized

waste transport vehicles depends on the nature of the predominant waste, type and number of

collection containers, the periodicity of waste transportation, the work schedule of the

specialized vehicles, the technological process of waste collection and transportation, the

remoteness to the processing center, the condition of transport infrastructure etc. There is a

particular problem in routing optimization of waste transporting vehicles with time windows

when collecting and transporting domestic waste in urban areas. A mathematical formula,

based on the Vehicle Routing Problem with Time Windows (VRPTW) is proposed as well as a

solving method through a meta-heuristic approach.