Publication Date

1997

Document Type

Dissertation/Thesis

First Advisor

Krishnamurthi, Murali

Degree Name

M.S. (Master of Science)

Legacy Department

Department of Industrial Engineering

LCSH

Snow removal--Planning; Snow removal--Simulation methods

Abstract

Snow and ice-covered roads cause inconvenience to the public, reduce vehicle mobility, and increase the potential for accidents. The regions which experience snow and ice storms require special attention to keep the roads safe for driving and reduce damage to property and personal loss. Any improvement made in the planning o f snow removal can save money to tax payers and the local government. In this research, a generic framework is proposed for the dynamic planning o f the snow removal process. The framework contains a heuristic, a continuous simulation model, and an interface for integrating these two. The framework accommodates both salt spraying and snow plowing operations o f the snow removal process. The framework also considers changes in the snow-fall rate and dynamically determines new routing plans for the snow removal trucks to follow, whenever changes in the snow-fall rate require a new routing plan. The heuristic developed for the framework treats snow removal routes as an undirected, hierarchical network and determines the routing plans for the snow removal trucks. The developed heuristic has been found to give a better solution compared to an existing heuristic, when the subnetwork induced by each hierarchy level is disconnected. The heuristic has also been modified to obtain a lower bound for the Hierarchical Postman Problem applied to the snow removal process. The heuristic has been implemented in Turbo C and validated using thirty-one sample networks. The simulation model developed for the framework is a continuous one, and it considers the changes in the snow-fall rate for dynamically planning the snow removal / process. When executed, the simulation model obtains a routing plan by calling the developed heuristic and simulates the salt spraying and snow plowing operations. When the snow-fall rate changes, the simulation model dynamically revises the snow removal process by calling the heuristic and obtaining a new plan. The simulation model has been implemented using the simulation language SIMAN and has been interfaced with the heuristic using WATCOM C/C++. The implemented framework has been validated using an actual snow removal problem from the city of DeKalb, Illinois. The simulation results have been found to compare favorably with manual computations, thus validating the framework. The details o f the framework, including the developed heuristic and the continuous simulation model, are discussed in this thesis.

Comments

Includes bibliographical references (pages [109]-111)

Extent

xii, 258 pages

Language

eng

Publisher

Northern Illinois University

Rights Statement

In Copyright

Rights Statement 2

NIU theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from Huskie Commons for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without the written permission of the authors.

Media Type

Text

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