Design of material transportation systems for sustainability

摘要

Moving towards sustainability implies a social challenge that entails urban planning and the environmental impact of the transport of waste management. Previous studies assume the use of a unique vehicle, but in this study; many levels of transportation are examined with different transportation methods at each level, allowing the use of greener and smaller transportation methods in urban centres. In this article, the comparison between the use of a unique vehicle and the use of a hierarchical structure for the collection and transportation is analyzed. In the first level of the transportation structure, the transportation method is, a human activity such as walking and carrying 10 kg, in the second level the transportation method was a bicycle carrying 100 kg and for the third and fourth levels the use of motorized vehicles carrying 1 and 10 tons of material. Results support the hierarchical structure with multiple levels and transportation methods to reduce energy consumption, over the most common use of a single level of transportation. The results show that population density has a significant association with reduced transport energy. Results also demonstrate that the loading ratio of each transportation method, the number of stops in each level and the energy spent per stop also affect the transport structure. To demonstrate the applicability of the proposed framework; this paper focuses on a real -life case study of the waste management system in Montreal, Canada. This approach provides insights for city planners or policy-makers regarding flow structures and methods to transportation.