Optimal routing of complex transportation system of biomedical waste with multiple depot and disposal options

Determination of safe and optimal routes for biomedical waste (BMW) collection and transportation using a fleet of vehicles is a complex issue. The issue gets significant, when the vehicles that outset from multiple depots, collects the BMW from hospitals scattered around a region and carry the waste to multiple disposal sites. The present paper deals with the development of a modified ACS-based approach to determine the optimal and safest route for BMW collection and transportation for such situation. The major objectives considered for route selection of vehicles, are the risk associated with the collection and transportation of BMW; total scheduling time of vehicles and number of vehicles. In this approach, clusters of the hospital nodes are constituted based on their distance from the nearest depot and late time window associated with the hospital node. Thereafter, the routes are scheduled and optimised using modified multi-objective ant colony system (MOACS). The computed results are validated abreast with benchmark solutions, demonstrating effectiveness of the proposed approach. Its applicability is elucidated using an illustrative example based on realistic data.