VRP in urban areas to optimize costs while mitigating environmental impact

Abstract

Nowadays, the need to think about sustainable mobility, both goods and people, is widely recognized. For this reason, many recent papers have moved in this direction. In this context, particular attention is now devoted to urban mobility, mainly from a smart city perspective. The present work focuses on sustainable urban freight distribution and proposes a variant of the VRP, which presents some innovative aspects. The goal is to minimize the routes’ cost components, including traveling and external costs due to environmental issues, depending on the chosen vehicles and the different urban streets to cross. In addition, restrictions on the maximum duration of each route to ensure frequent sanitation of vehicles used for deliveries, as required from the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, are imposed. The distribution network is modeled by a weighted digraph for which some properties are proved. To face the problem, we present a mixed-integer linear programming model, a math-heuristic associated with it, and a memetic algorithm approach. The results of the reported computational experimentation with random instances specifically tailored for the problem show the efficiency of the proposed methods. Further, test cases based on data of the distribution network of two B2C companies operating in the city of Genoa, Italy, proved the effective application of the proposed methods in the direction of sustainable urban distribution plans.

An Exact Approach for Selecting Pickup-Delivery Stations in Urban Areas to Reduce Distribution Emission Costs

“…Constraints (3) ensure that each pds p j ∈ P cannot serve more customers than its capacity r j . Constraints (4) impose that the distance between each customer and each pds should not exceed the given maximum distance D. Constraints ( 5), ( 6), (10) and (11) ensures that from node w must leave at most one outgoing and ingoing edge, for each customer ∈ C and pds ∈ P. The two different delivery tours of the goods are defined in the following constraints. Indeed, constraints (7) and ( 8) are the classical TSP formulation involving each customer ∈ C served by the warehouse and defining the partitioning between the set Q and Q .…”

“…As cost minimisation is one of the primary goals of distribution logistics, much attention in recent literature is focused on suggesting to interested companies how to limit delivery costs while minimising pollutant emissions (Dekker et al, 2012 [2]; Bektaş et al, 2019 [3]; Heshmati et al, 2019 [4]). In particular, taking into account also the social need and the impact that the distribution of goods has on citizens, in the current decade, many studies have been proposed aimed at sustainable urban mobility, especially from a smart city perspective (Nathanail et al, 2016 [5]; Behnke and Kirschstein, 2017 [6]; Carrabs et al, 2017 [7]; Marakova et al, 2017 [8]; Cerulli et al, 2018 [9]; Strale, 2019 [10]; Cerrone and Sciomachen, 2022 [11]). This concern is deeply considered in cities not only with high populational density but also with a lack of parking spaces and pickup-delivery stations, which will potentially lead to unnecessary vehicular movements and increase carbon emissions (UNFCCC, 2015 [12]).…”

Min-cost route problems for multimodal sustainable logistics cooperation

“…In recent times, there has been a growing recognition among trained professionals and specialists of the need to focus on multimodal transportation in light of its various sustainable benefits [8][9][10][11]. The European Union (EU) has also recognized the negative externalities associated with road haulage, such as delays, congestion, and environmental impact from CO 2 emissions [12][13][14][15][16]. To address these issues, the EU has set ambitious targets for a competitive and resource-efficient transport system, including a shift towards more sustainable modes of transport like rail and waterway transport [17].…”

Utjecaj bolesti Covid-19 na usmjeravanje vozila u praksi

“…Zbornik radova Veleučilišta u Šibeniku, 2022, Vol. 16(3)(4), pp. 133-144 L. Olivari, S. Đuranović: UTJECAJ BOLESTI COVID-19 NA USMJERAVANJE VOZILA U PRAKSI…”