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The Electric Vehicle-Routing Problem with Time Windows and Recharging Stations

Author

Listed:
  • Michael Schneider

    (Logistics Planning and Information Systems, TU Darmstadt, 64289 Darmstadt, Germany)

  • Andreas Stenger

    (Lufthansa Technik, 22335 Hamburg, Germany)

  • Dominik Goeke

    (Business Information Systems and Operations Research, University of Kaiserslautern, 67653 Kaiserslautern, Germany)

Abstract

Driven by new laws and regulations concerning the emission of greenhouse gases, carriers are starting to use electric vehicles for last-mile deliveries. The limited battery capacities of these vehicles necessitate visits to recharging stations during delivery tours of industry-typical length, which have to be considered in the route planning to avoid inefficient vehicle routes with long detours. We introduce the electric vehicle-routing problem with time windows and recharging stations (E-VRPTW), which incorporates the possibility of recharging at any of the available stations using an appropriate recharging scheme. Furthermore, we consider limited vehicle freight capacities as well as customer time windows, which are the most important constraints in real-world logistics applications. As a solution method, we present a hybrid heuristic that combines a variable neighborhood search algorithm with a tabu search heuristic. Tests performed on newly designed instances for the E-VRPTW as well as on benchmark instances of related problems demonstrate the high performance of the heuristic proposed as well as the positive effect of the hybridization.

Suggested Citation

  • Michael Schneider & Andreas Stenger & Dominik Goeke, 2014. "The Electric Vehicle-Routing Problem with Time Windows and Recharging Stations," Transportation Science, INFORMS, vol. 48(4), pages 500-520, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:inm:ortrsc:v:48:y:2014:i:4:p:500-520
    DOI: 10.1287/trsc.2013.0490
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    References listed on IDEAS

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