Savings and emission reductions through route optimization

In the project, waste container emptying routes in a large Finnish city were optimized using an algorithm developed by twoday. This was done using a tool that reads data from Remeo’s information system, converts it into a format suitable for optimization and feeds the results back into Remeo’s system in the correct format.

With the optimization algorithms, a driving route was created for each day of the week, taking into account the shift-specific restrictions. In addition, a new algorithm that balances the emptying frequency across different weeks was developed. Several alternative scenarios were calculated with the provided data, for example, depending on the number of driving days available.

The key indicators of the effectiveness of Remeo’s operations are the total length of the routes, drive times and balancing.  Route balancing refers to the scheduling of emptying during the week so that driving shifts on different days are as similar in length as possible. Too long routes result in overtime, whereas too short routes do not make effective use of working time.

The interval between emptying the containers varies between 1 and 60 days, which affords many possibilities for route planning but at the same time considerably increases the number of alternatives to consider. In addition to the location of the containers and the emptying intervals, in some places, the interval during which the emptying can be carried out should be taken into account.

“Cooperation with twoday went very smoothly, and the progress of the project was transparent thanks to the weekly progress reports. At first, I was sceptical about the project, but the idea started to look much more positive when I saw the first results,” says Joonas Savolainen, Project Manager at Remeo.