Calls for papers

 

International Journal of Decision Support Systems
International Journal of Decision Support Systems

 

Special Issue on: "Vehicle Routing Problems: Formulations and Solution Algorithms"


Guest Editors:
Assistant Prof. Yannis Marinakis and Dr. Magdalene Marinaki, Technical University of Crete, Greece


The vehicle routing problem is one of the most important problems in the field of supply chain management of logistics, of combinatorial optimisation and, in general, of operational research.

Interest in this problem has recently increased from both the theoretical and practical perspectives. From the practical point of view, the problem is one of the most crucial ones in supply chain management and, thus, the finding of the optimal set of routes will help decision makers to reduce the cost of the supply chain and increase profit. In the formulation of the problem, managers can simulate the complete network and add any constraints concerning customers, vehicles, routes and, additionally, the traffic conditions of the network and the energy consumption of the vehicles.

From the theoretical point of view, there are a number of researchers that deal with the solution of a variant (or more variants) of the problem. These variants of the problem focus on specific constraints and the researchers are trying to find an algorithm that gives the best new solutions in a specific set of benchmark instances or in problems from real life.

For this special issue, we invite contributions in both theoretical and practical aspects of the vehicle routing problem.

Subject Coverage
Suitable topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • Variants of the vehicle routing problem
    • Capacitated vehicle routing problem
    • Cumulative capacitated vehicle routing problem
    • Dynamic vehicle routing problem
    • Inventory routing problem
    • Green vehicle routing problem
    • Location routing problem
    • Multi-depot vehicle routing problem
    • Open vehicle routing problem
    • Pollution routing problem
    • Production routing problem
    • Split delivery vehicle routing problem
    • Stochastic vehicle routing problem
    • Vehicle routing problem with simultaneous pickup and deliveries
    • Vehicle routing problem with time windows
    • Vehicle routing problem with backhauls
  • Solution algorithms for vehicle routing problems
    • Ant colony optimisation
    • Artificial bee colony
    • Artificial immune systems
    • Differential evolution
    • Genetic algorithms
    • Greedy randomized adaptive search procedure
    • Particle swarm optimisation
    • Simulated annealing
    • Tabu search
    • Variable neighborhood search
  • Decision support systems for vehicle routing problems

Notes for Prospective Authors

Submitted papers should not have been previously published nor be currently under consideration for publication elsewhere. (N.B. Conference papers may only be submitted if the paper has been completely re-written and if appropriate written permissions have been obtained from any copyright holders of the original paper).

All papers are refereed through a peer review process.

All papers must be submitted online. To submit a paper, please read our Submitting articles page.


Important Dates

Deadline for full paper submission: 30 April, 2016

Notice of acceptance/rejection: 30 June, 2016

Revised paper submission: 31 August, 2016

Final decision: 30 September, 2016