01122010

Component

This paper studies approximations to the average length of Vehicle Routing Problems (VRP) with time window, route duration, and demand constraints. The approximations are valuable for the strategic and planning analysis of transportation and logistics problems. Using asymptotic properties of vehicle routing problems and the average probability of successfully sequencing a customer with time windows a new expression to estimate VRP distances is developed. Expressions to estimate the number of additional routes needed for a varying number of time windows constraints is modeled using an average probability of successfully sequencing a customer with time windows. It is proven that this average probability is a unique characteristic of a vehicle routing problem. The approximation is tested in instances with different customer spatial distributions, depot locations and number of customers. Regression results indicate that the proposed approximation is not only intuitive but also predicts the average length of VRP problems with a high level of accuracy.

01120148

09-1343

English

20p

2009

Transportation Research Board 88th Annual Meeting

DVD

References; Tables (5)

Routes and routing; Strategic planning; Time windows; Traffic estimation; Travel demand; Travel time; Trucking

Time dependent vehicle routing problem

Freight Transportation; Highways; Motor Carriers; Planning and Forecasting; I72: Traffic and Transport Planning

Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting 2009 Paper #09-1343

TRIS, TRB

Jan 30 2009 5:35PM