A decision support system for urban waste management

• Published in: European journal of operational research 1998-09, Vol.109 (2), p.330-341
• Main Authors: Haastrup, P., Maniezzo, V., Mattarelli, M., Mazzeo Rinaldi, F., Mendes, I., Paruccini, M.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Applied sciences; Decision support system; Decision support systems; Decision theory. Utility theory; Environment; Exact sciences and technology; Management; Operational research and scientific management; Operational research. Management science; Operations research; Pollution; Studies; Urban and domestic wastes; Urban waste; Waste management industry; Wastes
• ISSN: 0377-2217; 1872-6860
• DOI: 10.1016/S0377-2217(98)00061-7

This paper describes a decision support system, for urban waste management in a regional area, to be used for evaluating general policies for service organisation of the collection and for identifying areas suitable for locating waste treatment and disposal plants. The Decision Support System (DSS) is applied to a selected provinces in Sicily. The decision support system allows the generation and evaluation of suitable alternatives with respect to salient features of the problem, especially environmental consequences. The paper describes the identification and collection of relevant information, the structuring of a database, the design of combinatorial optimisation algorithms for solving the core location problem, the study of models for evaluating the different alternatives and their framing in a complete multicriteria decision model. Finally, the solution of the case study, by means of the DSS, is described.