Enhanced crane operations in construction using service request optimization

•A service request sequence optimization model is developed for tower cranes.•The Traveling Salesman Problem is extended for crane service sequence optimization.•Optimizing operations can result in 25-45% reduction in crane’s travel time.

This paper develops a novel service request sequence optimization model for tower crane operation efficiency improvement. The suggested model uses integer programming and modifies the classical Traveling Salesman Problem (TSP) formulation for optimizing construction tower crane operations. Numerical examples demonstrate that the application of the developed optimization model can result in 25–45% saving in the total travel time of the tower crane depending on the number of simultaneous requests.