Solid waste transfer station design

General solid waste transfer station analyses are presented, including mode of transfer, sizing of tipping floors, and vehicle traffic flow. A case study for a transfer station in Riley County, Kansas, is used for demonstration purposes. Approaches for conceptual level analyses are provided, with emphasis on queuing analysis and its importance to vehicle traffic flow at solid waste transfer stations. Basic queuing theory is reviewed for both scalehouse and tipping floor queues, and the impact of self-haul vehicles is presented. The applicability of exponential distributions to intervehicle arrival rates and service rates is discussed, and the verification from field data of the exponential distribution to intervehicle arrival rates is provided for a proposed transfer station site. A queuing analysis for the Riley County, Kansas transfer station is presented, along with a simplified graphical solution for the exponential queuing model.