Routing Optimization for Healthcare Waste Collection With Temporary Storing Risks and Sequential Uncertain Service Requests

Abstract

The effective disposal of healthcare waste is a highly concerned issue. Healthcare waste collection poses transport risks and temporary storing risks, and the deliberation undertaken by decision-makers concerning waste collection entails potential scenario wherein some hospitals have not yet submitted their service requests and may submit their requests during the healthcare waste collection procedure. A routing optimisation problem for healthcare waste collection with temporary storing risks and sequential uncertain service requests is introduced. A two-stage decision-making is proposed and mathematical models corresponding to each stage are developed. Different solution algorithms are developed for different stages or different scales of instances, including the improved ϵ-constraint method and Non-dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm-II for the solution procedure in Stage 1, and the Compare-choose-move algorithm for the solution procedure in Stage 2. Finally, the models and algorithms are tested by numerical instances and several suggestions for healthcare waste collection have been proposed based on sensitivity analysis.