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Intraroute Resource Replenishment with Mobile Depots

Author

Listed:
  • Julian Hof

    (Deutsche Bahn AG, DB Analytics–Optimization, 60329 Frankfurt am Main, Germany)

  • Michael Schneider

    (Deutsche Post Chair–Optimization of Distribution Networks, RWTH Aachen University, 52062 Aachen, Germany)

Abstract

In numerous practical vehicle-routing applications, larger vehicles are employed as mobile depots to support a fleet of smaller vehicles that perform certain tasks. The mobile depots offer the possibility of keeping the task vehicles operational by supplying them en route with certain resources. For example, in two-echelon distribution systems, small task vehicles are used to navigate narrow streets and to deliver/collect goods or to collect waste, and larger vehicles serve as mobile depots to replenish the goods to be delivered or to receive collected goods or waste at the outskirts of the urban area. Accessibility constraints may also be imposed by regulations on emissions, which make some areas only accessible for environmentally friendly vehicles such as, for example, battery-powered electric vehicles. Especially if the respective refueling infrastructure is sparse, mobile refueling stations seem to be an interesting alternative. In this paper, we introduce the vehicle-routing problem with time windows and mobile depots (VRPTWMD) to capture the routing decisions of the described applications in a generalized fashion. The VRPTWMD is characterized by fleets of task vehicles (TVs) and support vehicles (SVs). The SVs may serve as mobile depots to restore either the load or the fuel capacity of the TVs that are used to fulfill the customer requests. We present a mixed-integer program for the VRPTWMD with which small instances can be solved using a commercial solver. Moreover, we develop a high-quality hybrid heuristic composed of an adaptive large neighborhood search and a path relinking approach to provide solutions on larger problem instances. We use a newly generated set of large VRPTWMD instances to analyze the effect of different problem characteristics on the structure of the identified solutions. In addition, our approach shows very convincing performance on benchmark instances for the related two-echelon multiple-trip VRP with satellite synchronization, which can be viewed as a special case of the VRPTWMD. Our heuristic is able to significantly improve a large part of the previous best-known solutions while spending notably less computation time than the comparison algorithm from the literature.

Suggested Citation

  • Julian Hof & Michael Schneider, 2021. "Intraroute Resource Replenishment with Mobile Depots," Transportation Science, INFORMS, vol. 55(3), pages 660-686, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:inm:ortrsc:v:55:y:2021:i:3:p:660-686
    DOI: 10.1287/trsc.2020.1034
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Grangier, Philippe & Gendreau, Michel & Lehuédé, Fabien & Rousseau, Louis-Martin, 2016. "An adaptive large neighborhood search for the two-echelon multiple-trip vehicle routing problem with satellite synchronization," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 254(1), pages 80-91.
    2. Michael Drexl, 2012. "Synchronization in Vehicle Routing---A Survey of VRPs with Multiple Synchronization Constraints," Transportation Science, INFORMS, vol. 46(3), pages 297-316, August.
    3. Zhou, Lin & Baldacci, Roberto & Vigo, Daniele & Wang, Xu, 2018. "A Multi-Depot Two-Echelon Vehicle Routing Problem with Delivery Options Arising in the Last Mile Distribution," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 265(2), pages 765-778.
    4. Nguyen, Viet-Phuong & Prins, Christian & Prodhon, Caroline, 2012. "Solving the two-echelon location routing problem by a GRASP reinforced by a learning process and path relinking," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 216(1), pages 113-126.
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    6. 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.
    7. C-A Amaya & A Langevin & M Trépanier, 2010. "A heuristic method for the capacitated arc routing problem with refill points and multiple loads," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 61(7), pages 1095-1103, July.
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    Cited by:

    1. Hendri Sutrisno & Chao-Lung Yang, 2023. "A two-echelon location routing problem with mobile satellites for last-mile delivery: mathematical formulation and clustering-based heuristic method," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 323(1), pages 203-228, April.
    2. Lena Hörsting & Catherine Cleophas, 2023. "Integrating Micro-Depot Freight Transport in Existing Public Transport Services," SN Operations Research Forum, Springer, vol. 4(3), pages 1-35, September.

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