Minimizing the handling time in VRP with pickup-and-delivery and time windows

Abstract

Improving services through goods pickups and deliveries to expand the market is currently being carried out by many companies. This effort needs another step of optimization to avoid losses due to additional resources, such as time, which must be held by the company. In the case of simultaneous goods pickups and deliveries using a vehicle with single transport access, the policy of arranging goods in the vehicle can affect the length of time for service. Single transport access causes goods that want to be unloaded obstructed by the other goods, thus requires additional time for handling. In this paper, the problem of a vehicle’s route and handling time in picking and delivering goods with time windows is modeled as the Traveling Salesman Problem. The objective function of this problem is to minimize the total travel time and handling time during the picking and delivering goods. The model is implemented in the case of bicycle pickup and delivery services involving 15 bicycle shops. The capacity of the vehicle is 15 units of bicycle. In this case, a solution consisting the pickup and delivery route and optimal goods order is obtained with an objective function value of 334 minutes.