Exploring Roadside Management Optimisation Opportunities: A Systematic Review on Arc Routing Problems Applications and Modelling

ABSTRACT The gradual growth of road infrastructure worldwide has heightened the importance of sustainable roadside management for preserving adjacent ecosystems and maintaining critical ecosystem services. Although the Arc Routing Problem (ARP) presents a promising framework for optimising operations carried out along an arc, its application to roadside management remains unexplored despite its advantages over traditional routing problems. This study presents a comprehensive systematic literature review to analyse how ARPs have been applied across various real‐world scenarios and to identify relevant features for roadside management applications. The presented analysis is conducted in two stages. First, a bibliometric analysis introduces the context of the ARP scientific domain. Then, a deeper analysis is based on a detailed examination of model characteristics, network configurations, and sustainability challenges across different application domains. The findings reveal a predominance of theoretical work with few real‐life applications but highlight significant opportunities for adapting existing ARP frameworks to roadside management, particularly in integrating sustainability criteria and local context considerations. However, crucial gaps in current ARP applications are identified, notably the limited incorporation of sustainable and regenerative practices in model formulation. This review provides a structured decision support framework for researchers and practitioners, outlining specific directions for developing ARP models tailored to sustainable roadside management while emphasising the need to balance operational efficiency with sustainable objectives.