Guide to multi-objective optimization for the green vehicle routing problem

Abstract

This article aims to present research conducted on the literature regarding Multi-objective Optimization (MOO) for routing problems with environmental considerations (EC), referred to here as Multi-objective Optimization for the Green Vehicle Routing Problem (MOOGVRP). A Brazilian database, CAPES (Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel), was used to collect articles of general application, case studies and reviews in English starting from, since 2012. The terms “green vehicle routing problem” (GVRP), “pollution routing problem” (PRP), “vehicle routing problem in reverse logistics” (VRPRL) and “multi-objective” were used in the research protocol. Consequently, this study obtained 1,744 research results that, following the application of the filtering criterion, resulted in a sample of 76 articles from 38 journals, for which a bibliometric data (bibliometric review) survey was conducted. When dealing with the bibliometric data of the sample, it was possible to identify information such as the number of publications per year and types of published works. Information was also identified regarding the most frequently used journals and the countries and institutions that published the most articles on the proposed theme. It was also possible to analyze the frequency of the protocol terms in the title, abstracts and keywords, the relationship between taxonomies, vehicle fleet types, multi-objective procedures, and VRP procedures. Information was also found regarding solution procedures, number of objectives, and programming languages for computational implementation, the frequency of the most used objectives, and the most cited articles in the sample. The originality of this article lies in how the research is presented, highlighting the results and particular details obtained through the survey, which may be considered of great academic importance in the sense of guiding the trends for future research.