Bi-objective reliable eco-routing considering uncertainties of travel time and fuel consumption

Abstract

Eco-routing aims to provide fuel-efficient paths to help travellers make route choice decisions in the road network. Most eco-routing algorithms build on a deterministic assumption about link fuel consumption. However, link fuel consumption in real road networks is highly stochastic caused by travel speed variations. This study investigates the eco-routing problem by explicitly considering uncertainties of travel time and fuel consumption. A stochastic fuel consumption formula to estimate fuel consumption distributions caused by travel speed variations is proposed. A bi-objective reliable eco-routing model is developed by minimizing the travel time budget and fuel consumption budget simultaneously while satisfying given constraints on travel time reliability and fuel consumption reliability. An efficient reliable path ranking algorithm is developed to solve the formulated model exactly. A comprehensive case study using real data from Hong Kong is presented to demonstrate the applicability of the proposed model and algorithm.