Article: The sustainable routing problem Journal: International Journal of Services and Operations Management (IJSOM) 2013 Vol.16 No.3 pp.310 - 336 Abstract: Nowadays environmental, social, and political pressures to limit the impacts linked to CO2 emissions are rapidly increasing. This paper aim at the solution of a new class of A routing problem: the sustainable routing problem, where the objective, unlike the classical approaches, is the CO2 emission minimisation. The amount of CO2 emitted by a vehicle depends on different factors. If the problem is analysed from the driver's point of view, these factors can be divided into 'internal', i.e., directly related to him/her (i.e., driving style, acceleration, average speed, route knowledge, etc.), and into 'external', i.e., depending on the environment in which the trip is made (i.e., traffic congestion, speed limits, vehicle type, etc.). Firstly the paper, starting from Fonseca et al. (2011) study, proposes a CO2 emission estimation as function of the different internal/external factors. Secondly, the authors formalise a sustainable routing model, validating it through a case study as well as a parametric analysis. The results suggest that, contrary to the classical vehicle routing problem, the proposed model allows a larger reduction of CO2 emission versus the increasing time and distance, suggesting interesting potentials in the environmental preservation. Inderscience Publishers - linking academia, business and industry through research

Title: The sustainable routing problem

Authors: Maurizio Faccio; Alessandro Persona; Giorgia Zanin

Addresses: Department of Management and Engineering, University of Padova, Stradella San Nicola 3, 36100, Vicenza – Italy ' Department of Management and Engineering, University of Padova, Stradella San Nicola 3, 36100, Vicenza – Italy ' Department of Management and Engineering, University of Padova, Stradella San Nicola 3, 36100, Vicenza – Italy

Abstract: Nowadays environmental, social, and political pressures to limit the impacts linked to CO₂ emissions are rapidly increasing. This paper aim at the solution of a new class of A routing problem: the sustainable routing problem, where the objective, unlike the classical approaches, is the CO₂ emission minimisation. The amount of CO₂ emitted by a vehicle depends on different factors. If the problem is analysed from the driver's point of view, these factors can be divided into 'internal', i.e., directly related to him/her (i.e., driving style, acceleration, average speed, route knowledge, etc.), and into 'external', i.e., depending on the environment in which the trip is made (i.e., traffic congestion, speed limits, vehicle type, etc.). Firstly the paper, starting from Fonseca et al. (2011) study, proposes a CO₂ emission estimation as function of the different internal/external factors. Secondly, the authors formalise a sustainable routing model, validating it through a case study as well as a parametric analysis. The results suggest that, contrary to the classical vehicle routing problem, the proposed model allows a larger reduction of CO₂ emission versus the increasing time and distance, suggesting interesting potentials in the environmental preservation.

Keywords: routing problem; sustainability; CO2; carbon dioxide; carbon emissions; vehicle emission factors; urban congestion; sustainable routing; vehicle routing; emissions reduction.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSOM.2013.056766

International Journal of Services and Operations Management, 2013 Vol.16 No.3, pp.310 - 336

Published online: 02 Jul 2014 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article

Title: The sustainable routing problem

Keep up-to-date