Multi-objective heterogeneous vehicle routing and scheduling problem with energy minimizing

Abstract

Abstract A new model and solution for the multi-objective heterogeneous vehicle routing and scheduling problem, with energy minimizing, is presented in this paper. The concept of heterogeneities is concerned with the ownership of fleets. Ownership heterogeneities occur when the private fleet is not sufficient and the company has to rent some vehicles from external carriers to complete the shipments. A new mathematical formulation for vehicle routing problem with time windows (VRPTW) is also presented using the proposed concept of heterogeneities. Moreover, unlike prior attempts to minimize cost by minimizing overall traveling distance, the model also incorporates energy minimizing which meets the latest requirements of green logistics. This paper considers the customers' priority for servicing as well. The proposed model is interpreted as multi-objective optimization and used in two scenarios where, in the first scenario (I), the energy consumed and the total number of vehicles are minimized and the total satisfaction rate of customers is maximized. In the second scenario (II) the distance traveled by the vehicles, the total number of rental vehicles and the fuel consumed by the private vehicles are minimized and the total satisfaction is maximized. A new solution based on an evolutionary algorithm is proposed and its performance on several completely random instances is compared to the non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm II (NSGA II) and CPLEX Solver. The efficiency and effectiveness of the proposed approach is further demonstrated through several computational experiments.