Route modelling for gritting vehicles: A GIS-based approach for the Municipality of Rotterdam

Abstract

In the Netherlands local municipalities are responsible for keeping vehicles and pedestrians safe while travelling. In winter times this is accomplished by spreading salt over a selection of roadways by gritting vehicles. The current routing of these gritting vehicles is drawn manually on paper maps, keeping into account features as depot location, selected gritting roads, traffic rules and time-windows. This thesis created a route model workflow to systematically create gritting routes within a geographical information system (GIS) using network analyses functionalities of ArcGIS. The method shows an innovative node turn-restriction modelling approach to what is originally an arc routing problem. The model has been applied to two routes in the area of Hoogvliet, Rotterdam using different scenarios to decipher the model performance with regard to current manual routing. The results showed total travel time ranges from an increase of 8,6% to a decrease of 5,4%, though leaving some arcs ungritted. The conclusion is that it is possible to construct gritting routes within a GIS, but it still remains challenging to create solid near-optimal gritting routing solutions.