IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v15y2023i2p1252-d1030132.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Vehicle Routing Optimization for Vaccine Distribution Considering Reducing Energy Consumption

Author

Listed:
  • Runfeng Yu

    (School of Traffic and Transportation, Beijing Jiaotong University, Beijing 100044, China)

  • Lifen Yun

    (School of Traffic and Transportation, Beijing Jiaotong University, Beijing 100044, China)

  • Chen Chen

    (QI-ANXIN Group, Beijing 100044, China)

  • Yuanjie Tang

    (School of Traffic and Transportation, Beijing Jiaotong University, Beijing 100044, China)

  • Hongqiang Fan

    (School of Modern Post, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Beijing 100876, China)

  • Yi Qin

    (School of Traffic and Transportation, Beijing Jiaotong University, Beijing 100044, China)

Abstract

In recent years, the energy consumption of vehicles has gained widespread attention due to the increasing importance of energy and environmental issues. Coupled with the explosive demand for vaccines that has spawned the massive deployment of refrigerated trucks, energy savings and efficiency improvement are the goals pursued by pharmaceutical logistics companies while getting the vaccine distribution task done. In order to evaluate the fuel consumption of refrigerated trucks during vaccine distribution, in this paper, we construct a mathematical model for the vehicle routing problem with time windows (VRPTW) for vaccine distribution with the aim of minimizing the total cost, including fossil fuel cost and penalty cost. Due to the NP -hardness and nonlinearity of the model, a genetic algorithm with a large neighborhood search operator (GA-LNS) and TSP-split encoding method is customized to address the large-scale problem. Numerical experiments show that the algorithm can obtain a near-optimal solution in an acceptable computational time. In addition, the proposed algorithm is implemented to evaluate a case of vaccine distribution in Haidian, Beijing, China. Insights on the effects of seasonal temperature, vehicle speed, driver working hours, and refrigeration efficiency are also presented.

Suggested Citation

  • Runfeng Yu & Lifen Yun & Chen Chen & Yuanjie Tang & Hongqiang Fan & Yi Qin, 2023. "Vehicle Routing Optimization for Vaccine Distribution Considering Reducing Energy Consumption," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(2), pages 1-24, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:15:y:2023:i:2:p:1252-:d:1030132
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/2/1252/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/2/1252/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Sara Ceschia & Luca Di Gaspero & Antonella Meneghetti, 2020. "Extending and Solving the Refrigerated Routing Problem," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(23), pages 1-24, November.
    2. Guy Desaulniers & Fausto Errico & Stefan Irnich & Michael Schneider, 2016. "Exact Algorithms for Electric Vehicle-Routing Problems with Time Windows," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 64(6), pages 1388-1405, December.
    3. Mohammad Asghari & Seyed Mohammad Javad Mirzapour Al-E-Hashem, 2021. "Green vehicle routing problem: A state-of-the-art review," Post-Print hal-03182944, HAL.
    4. Xiao, Yiyong & Zuo, Xiaorong & Huang, Jiaoying & Konak, Abdullah & Xu, Yuchun, 2020. "The continuous pollution routing problem," Applied Mathematics and Computation, Elsevier, vol. 387(C).
    5. Marius M. Solomon, 1987. "Algorithms for the Vehicle Routing and Scheduling Problems with Time Window Constraints," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 35(2), pages 254-265, April.
    6. Schneider, M., 2016. "The vehicle-routing problem with time windows and driver-specific times," Publications of Darmstadt Technical University, Institute for Business Studies (BWL) 65941, Darmstadt Technical University, Department of Business Administration, Economics and Law, Institute for Business Studies (BWL).
    7. Antonella Meneghetti & Sara Ceschia, 2020. "Energy-efficient frozen food transports: the Refrigerated Routing Problem," International Journal of Production Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 58(14), pages 4164-4181, July.
    8. Zhang, Jianghua & Zhao, Yingxue & Xue, Weili & Li, Jin, 2015. "Vehicle routing problem with fuel consumption and carbon emission," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 170(PA), pages 234-242.
    9. G. B. Dantzig & J. H. Ramser, 1959. "The Truck Dispatching Problem," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 6(1), pages 80-91, October.
    10. Kwangho Ko & Tongwon Lee & Seunghyun Jeong, 2021. "A Deep Learning Method for Monitoring Vehicle Energy Consumption with GPS Data," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(20), pages 1-15, October.
    11. Erfan Ghorbani & Mahdi Alinaghian & Gevork. B. Gharehpetian & Sajad Mohammadi & Guido Perboli, 2020. "A Survey on Environmentally Friendly Vehicle Routing Problem and a Proposal of Its Classification," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(21), pages 1-71, October.
    12. Tolga Bektaş & Emrah Demir & Gilbert Laporte, 2016. "Green Vehicle Routing," International Series in Operations Research & Management Science, in: Harilaos N. Psaraftis (ed.), Green Transportation Logistics, edition 127, chapter 0, pages 243-265, Springer.
    13. Schneider, Michael, 2016. "The vehicle-routing problem with time windows and driver-specific times," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 250(1), pages 101-119.
    14. Jing Chen & Pengfei Gui & Tao Ding & Sanggyun Na & Yingtang Zhou, 2019. "Optimization of Transportation Routing Problem for Fresh Food by Improved Ant Colony Algorithm Based on Tabu Search," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(23), pages 1-22, November.
    15. Jin Li & Feng Wang & Yu He, 2020. "Electric Vehicle Routing Problem with Battery Swapping Considering Energy Consumption and Carbon Emissions," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(24), pages 1-20, December.
    16. Asghari, Mohammad & Mirzapour Al-e-hashem, S. Mohammad J., 2021. "Green vehicle routing problem: A state-of-the-art review," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 231(C).
    17. Jarosław Ziółkowski & Mateusz Oszczypała & Jerzy Małachowski & Joanna Szkutnik-Rogoż, 2021. "Use of Artificial Neural Networks to Predict Fuel Consumption on the Basis of Technical Parameters of Vehicles," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(9), pages 1-23, May.
    18. Seyfi, Majid & Alinaghian, Mahdi & Ghorbani, Erfan & Çatay, Bülent & Saeid Sabbagh, Mohammad, 2022. "Multi-mode hybrid electric vehicle routing problem," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 166(C).
    19. Yu, Bin & Yang, Zhong Zhen, 2011. "An ant colony optimization model: The period vehicle routing problem with time windows," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 47(2), pages 166-181, March.
    20. Baldacci, Roberto & Mingozzi, Aristide & Roberti, Roberto, 2012. "Recent exact algorithms for solving the vehicle routing problem under capacity and time window constraints," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 218(1), pages 1-6.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Dönmez, Sercan & Koç, Çağrı & Altıparmak, Fulya, 2022. "The mixed fleet vehicle routing problem with partial recharging by multiple chargers: Mathematical model and adaptive large neighborhood search," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 167(C).
    2. Liu, Yiming & Roberto, Baldacci & Zhou, Jianwen & Yu, Yang & Zhang, Yu & Sun, Wei, 2023. "Efficient feasibility checks and an adaptive large neighborhood search algorithm for the time-dependent green vehicle routing problem with time windows," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 310(1), pages 133-155.
    3. Quirion-Blais, Olivier & Chen, Lu, 2021. "A case-based reasoning approach to solve the vehicle routing problem with time windows and drivers’ experience," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 102(C).
    4. Schneider, Michael & Schwahn, Fabian & Vigo, Daniele, 2017. "Designing granular solution methods for routing problems with time windows," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 263(2), pages 493-509.
    5. Ali, Ousmane & Côté, Jean-François & Coelho, Leandro C., 2021. "Models and algorithms for the delivery and installation routing problem," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 291(1), pages 162-177.
    6. Emna Marrekchi & Walid Besbes & Diala Dhouib & Emrah Demir, 2021. "A review of recent advances in the operations research literature on the green routing problem and its variants," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 304(1), pages 529-574, September.
    7. Qiuping Ni & Yuanxiang Tang, 2023. "A Bibliometric Visualized Analysis and Classification of Vehicle Routing Problem Research," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(9), pages 1-37, April.
    8. Aderemi Oluyinka Adewumi & Olawale Joshua Adeleke, 2018. "A survey of recent advances in vehicle routing problems," International Journal of System Assurance Engineering and Management, Springer;The Society for Reliability, Engineering Quality and Operations Management (SREQOM),India, and Division of Operation and Maintenance, Lulea University of Technology, Sweden, vol. 9(1), pages 155-172, February.
    9. Nicolas Rincon-Garcia & Ben J. Waterson & Tom J. Cherrett, 2018. "Requirements from vehicle routing software: perspectives from literature, developers and the freight industry," Transport Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 38(1), pages 117-138, January.
    10. Asghari, Mohammad & Mirzapour Al-e-hashem, S. Mohammad J., 2021. "Green vehicle routing problem: A state-of-the-art review," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 231(C).
    11. Srinivas, Sharan & Ramachandiran, Surya & Rajendran, Suchithra, 2022. "Autonomous robot-driven deliveries: A review of recent developments and future directions," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 165(C).
    12. Baals, Julian & Emde, Simon & Turkensteen, Marcel, 2023. "Minimizing earliness-tardiness costs in supplier networks—A just-in-time truck routing problem," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 306(2), pages 707-741.
    13. Zhang, Jian & Woensel, Tom Van, 2023. "Dynamic vehicle routing with random requests: A literature review," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 256(C).
    14. Bakker, Steffen J. & Wang, Akang & Gounaris, Chrysanthos E., 2021. "Vehicle routing with endogenous learning: Application to offshore plug and abandonment campaign planning," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 289(1), pages 93-106.
    15. Gilbert Laporte, 2016. "Scheduling issues in vehicle routing," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 236(2), pages 463-474, January.
    16. Christian Tilk & Ann-Kathrin Rothenbächer & Timo Gschwind & Stefan Irnich, 2016. "Asymmetry Helps: Dynamic Half-Way Points for Solving Shortest Path Problems with Resource Constraints Faster," Working Papers 1615, Gutenberg School of Management and Economics, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz.
    17. Zhang, Shuai & Gajpal, Yuvraj & Appadoo, S.S. & Abdulkader, M.M.S., 2018. "Electric vehicle routing problem with recharging stations for minimizing energy consumption," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 203(C), pages 404-413.
    18. Tilk, Christian & Rothenbächer, Ann-Kathrin & Gschwind, Timo & Irnich, Stefan, 2017. "Asymmetry matters: Dynamic half-way points in bidirectional labeling for solving shortest path problems with resource constraints faster," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 261(2), pages 530-539.
    19. Bock, Stefan, 2020. "Optimally solving a versatile Traveling Salesman Problem on tree networks with soft due dates and multiple congestion scenarios," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 283(3), pages 863-882.
    20. Mohammad Asghari & Seyed Mohammad Javad Mirzapour Al-E-Hashem, 2021. "Green vehicle routing problem: A state-of-the-art review," Post-Print hal-03182944, HAL.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:15:y:2023:i:2:p:1252-:d:1030132. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.