Title: A hybrid metaheuristic algorithm for the green vehicle routing problem with a heterogeneous fleet

Authors: Seval Ene; İlker Küçükoğlu; Aslı Aksoy; Nursel Öztürk

Addresses: Faculty of Engineering, Industrial Engineering Department, Uludag University, Gorukle Campus, 16059 Bursa, Turkey ' Faculty of Engineering, Industrial Engineering Department, Uludag University, Gorukle Campus, 16059 Bursa, Turkey ' Faculty of Engineering, Industrial Engineering Department, Uludag University, Gorukle Campus, 16059 Bursa, Turkey ' Faculty of Engineering, Industrial Engineering Department, Uludag University, Gorukle Campus, 16059 Bursa, Turkey

Abstract: In this study, the green vehicle routing problem (GVRP) with a heterogeneous fleet is presented for both capacity and time-windows constraints to reduce fuel consumption and consequently to minimise CO2 emissions. A hybrid metaheuristic algorithm (HMA) is developed to solve this problem to analyse the effect of a heterogeneous fleet on reducing the fuel consumption for the specified variants of GVRP, such as GVRP with capacity constraints and GVRP with time-windows constraints. The proposed HMA is validated using well-known instances with different numbers of customers and fleet configurations. The computational results indicated that the HMA is capable of obtaining good results for GVRP variants within a reasonable amount of time by providing remarkable reductions in fuel consumption and greener fleet configurations.

Keywords: green VRP; vehicle routing problem; heterogeneous fleets; fuel consumption; hybrid metaheuristics; tabu search; simulated annealing; CO2; carbon dioxide; carbon emissions; capacity constraints; time window constraints; fleet configurations; environmental impact.

DOI: 10.1504/IJVD.2016.078771

International Journal of Vehicle Design, 2016 Vol.71 No.1/2/3/4, pp.75 - 102

Received: 05 Dec 2014
Accepted: 07 Oct 2015

Published online: 02 Sep 2016 *

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