Encyclopedia of Operations Research and Management Science

2013 Edition
| Editors: Saul I. Gass, Michael C. Fu

Urban Services

Reference work entry
First Online:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-1153-7_1094
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Introduction

Urban services cover a broad range of activities. These include sanitation and water systems; street cleaning to remove trash, snow, and ice; public housing; urban transportation systems; libraries (Reisman and Xu 1994); public health clinics; and other local government services. This article describes representative applications of operations research that improve the efficiency of these services. Emergency services such as police, fire, and emergency medical services are covered elsewhere in this volume.

Routing

One planning function common to many of the services listed above is the need to design efficient vehicle routes that minimize the cost of the service, primarily through minimization of travel time (Laporte 2009). Garbage collectors travel up and down streets, stopping in front of each house to pick up trash. Street sweepers move along curbsides sweeping up garbage while avoiding parked cars. Snowplows and salt trucks make their way through snow-covered arteries...

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© Springer Science+Business Media New York 2013

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Department of Industrial and Manufacturing EngineeringWayne State UniversityDetroitUSA