Vehicle routing with dynamic travel times: A queueing approach

T. Van Woensel*, L. Kerbache, H. Peremans, N. Vandaele

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

148 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Transportation is an important component of supply chain competitiveness since it plays a major role in the inbound, inter-facility, and outbound logistics. In this context, assigning and scheduling vehicle routes is a crucial management problem. In this paper, a vehicle routing problem with dynamic travel times due to potential traffic congestion is considered. The approach developed introduces mainly the traffic congestion component based on queueing theory. This is an innovative modeling scheme to capture travel times. The queueing approach is compared with other approaches and its potential benefits are described and quantified. Moreover, the optimization of the starting times of a route at the distribution center is evaluated. Finally, the trade-off between solution quality and calculation time is discussed. Numerous test instances are used, both to illustrate the appropriateness of the approach as well as to show that time-independent solutions are often unrealistic within a congested traffic environment, which is usually the case on European road networks.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)990-1007
Number of pages18
JournalEuropean Journal of Operational Research
Volume186
Issue number3
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 May 2008
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Dynamic travel times
  • Queueing
  • Vehicle scheduling

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Vehicle routing with dynamic travel times: A queueing approach'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this