Which route is better for hazmat transporting? An optimized routing index for urban networks

Abstract

The safety of vehicles and citizens on urban road network is a major subject, especially if this vehicle carries hazardous material. The paper focuses on developing an optimised index to identify the safest routes between any origin-destination pair within urban networks. The considered parameters include population, traffic safety, volume-capacity ratio, emergency response time, type of hazardous material (hazmat), and sensitive and vulnerable places. Notably, this study is the first to incorporate the last two parameters and the combination of all parameters in route optimization. The research formulates a Hazardous Material Vehicle Routing Problem (HMVRP) and proposes an algorithm to solve it. The approach is applied to a case study in Mashhad city, presenting the safest routes for transporting three types of hazardous materials. The findings indicate that the reduction in average risk score is comparable to the increase in average travel time, however, gain of the safest routes is lower than loss of the longer distance. The proposed method is practical and applicable to diverse urban networks, aiding in the routing and planning of any hazmat type transportation.