THE VEHICLE ROUTING PROBLEM WITH STOCHASTIC DEMANDS IN AN URBAN AREA – A CASE STUDY

• Main Authors: Danijel Marković, Goran Petrovć, Žarko Ćojbašić, Aleksandar Stanković
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: University of Niš 2020-03-01
• Series: Facta Universitatis. Series: Mechanical Engineering
• Online Access: http://casopisi.junis.ni.ac.rs/index.php/FUMechEng/article/view/5050

The vehicle routing problem with stochastic demands (VRPSD) is a combinatorial optimization problem. The VRPSD looks for vehicle routes to connect all customers with a depot, so that the total distance is minimized, each customer visited once by one vehicle, every route starts and ends at a depot, and the travelled distance and capacity of each vehicle are less than or equal to the given maximum value. Contrary to the classical VRP, in the VRPSD the demand in a node is known only after a vehicle arrives at the very node. This means that the vehicle routes are designed in uncertain conditions. This paper presents a heuristic and meta-heuristic approach for solving the VRPSD and discusses the real problem of municipal waste collection in the City of Niš.