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G-99-03

A Survey of Arc Routing Applications for Roadway Snow and Ice Control

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Roadway snow and ice control (RSIC) is one of the most complex and fascinating venues for arc routing applications. Arc routing problems occur in several different aspects of RSIC, including plowing roadways and sidewalks, spreading de-icers and abrasives, and in loading snow into trucks for hauling to disposal sites. The limited progress of computerized routing packages in this area highlights the difficulty of the problems and the weaknesses of theoretical arc routing models for snow and ice control. Arc routing problems for RSIC are especially difficult because of the dynamic environment and the complexities of equipment, infrastructure and operations. These problems differ from many other arc routing applications in a number of important ways, and yet there is also tremendous variation in RSIC operations themselves, due to vast differences in climate, levels of service, network complexity and size. This article highlights some of these key characteristics of RSIC that affect arc routing and presents a survey of arc routing applications. Several successful applications in the U.S., Canada and the U.K. are described in detail.

, 27 pages