Routing and scheduling of hazardous materials shipments: algorithmic approaches to managing spent nuclear fuel transport
Much controversy surrounds government regulation of routing and scheduling of Hazardous Materials Transportation (HMT). Increases in operating costs must be balanced against expected benefits from local HMT bans and curfews when promulgating or preempting HMT regulations. Algorithmic approaches for evaluating HMT routing and scheduling regulatory policy are described. A review of current US HMT regulatory policy is presented to provide a context for the analysis. Next, a multiobjective shortest path algorithm to find the set of efficient routes under conflicting objectives is presented. This algorithm generates all efficient routes under any partial ordering in a single pass through the network. Also, scheduling algorithms are presented to estimate the travel time delay due to HMT curfews along a route. Algorithms are presented assuming either deterministic or stochastic travel times between curfew cities and also possible rerouting to avoid such cities. These algorithms are applied to the case study of US highway transport of spent nuclear fuel from reactors to permanent repositories. Two data sets were used. One data set included the US Interstate Highway System (IHS) network with reactor locations, possible repository sites, and 150 heavily populated areas (HPAs). The other data set contained estimates of the population residing with 0.5 miles of the IHS and the Eastern US. Curfew delay is dramatically reduced by optimally scheduling departure times unless inter-HPA travel times are highly uncertain. Rerouting shipments to avoid HPAs is a less efficient approach to reducing delay.
- Research Organization:
- Cornell Univ., Ithaca, NY (USA)
- OSTI ID:
- 5065156
- Resource Relation:
- Other Information: Thesis (Ph. D.)
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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