A. Stenger

TL;DR: This work introduces the electric vehicle-routing problem with time windows and recharging stations E-VRPTW and presents a hybrid heuristic that combines a variable neighborhood search algorithm with a tabu search heuristic, which incorporates the possibility of recharging at any of the available stations using an appropriate recharging scheme.

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.

TL;DR: An effective Variable Neighborhood Search algorithm based on the use of cyclic-exchange neighborhoods that incorporates an adaptive mechanism to bias the random shaking step is developed and successfully used to solve MDVRPPC.

TL;DR: An adaptive variable neighborhood search (AVNS) is developed to solve the vehicle routing problem with intermediate stops (VRPIS), which considers stopping requirements at intermediate facilities.

TL;DR: Nagata et al. as discussed by the authors identify two cases in which the proposition for calculating time window penalties presented in Nagata, Y., Braysy, O. and Dullaert, W. yields incorrect results.