HEURISTIC ROUTING METHOD: A SIMPLE ANSWER TO COLLECTION PRODUCTIVITY.

Collection of solid waste in any community is a dynamic problem. As growth and development occurs, often the tendency is to deal with the problems which arise one by one and put off consideration of system productivity and efficiency to some unnamed future date. Collection systems are thus allowed to evolve which are unbalanced, inefficient and costly. What managers need are simple approaches to improving their systems which are not overly costly or time-consuming. Heuristic routing of vehicles is such a simple tool. It is easily learned, easy and quick to use, and can be used each time even minor modifications are needed to accommodate those gradual changes in the community. The article describes the technique and its application to vehicle routing for refuse collection.