Time Petri nets as an evaluation tool for handling travel time uncertainty in vehicle routing solutions

Abstract

Congestion on roads leads to uncertainty in travel times, which is important in delivery of goods, especially in a business environment where high levels of customer service are expected. Delivery periods to customers might be constrained by time windows, which makes the scheduling and routing of vehicles from the supplier’s side more difficult. Operations Research methods turn into heuristics for this type of application. But when, on top, uncertainty on travel times are the case, any hope of a simple and well-performing heuristic is lost. This study applies a methodology in which a heuristic is used to find a solution for scheduling and routing under deterministic travel times and, by means of simulation, though the use of Time Petri nets evaluates the sensitivity of the solution to uncertainties in travel times from one customer to the next in a route.