Integer Programming-Based Approaches for Sustainable Community Applications

Abstract

<p>Sustainability is an important consideration in municipalities, and decision-makers are often faced with making trade-offs in decisions on cost, location selection, and allocation. These decisions are often riddled with complexities and uncertainties, and a heuristic approach can become costly and inefficient. Integer programming is a branch of mathematical programming that can be applied to problems such as these and can be a helpful tool in the decision making process.</p> <p>This thesis presents three papers that develop and apply integer programming-based methodologies and their applications to problems faced by many communities: urban noise, school location-allocation and municipal solid waste collection.</p> <p>An interval-integer approach is applied to an urban noise problem to address the uncertainties in noise, variations in acceptable noise levels. The model determines the most optimal combination of common noise-control techniques to reduce noise in communities to acceptable levels based on the type of community.</p> <p>Changing demographics and urban sprawl have resulted in a decrease in school enrolment in parts of many municipalities, resulting in schools being closed and students driving longer distances to get to school. A mixed-integer linear programming approach is applied to select the best school option based on minimizing vehicle distances.</p> <p>Curbside solid waste collection, which is commonly used in North American municipalities, is a costly, labour intensive process. With fuel prices rising, it is becoming more expensive for municipalities to provide these services. This paper proposes a waste dropoff depot system for solid waste collection and provides a GIS-based integer programming model for site selection and bin sizing.</p>