Research on the Time‐Dependent Split Delivery Green Vehicle Routing Problem for Fresh Agricultural Products with Multiple Time Windows

Abstract

Due to the diversity and the different distribution conditions of agricultural products, split delivery plays an important role in the last mile distribution of agricultural products distribution. The time‐dependent split delivery green vehicle routing problem with multiple time windows (TDSDGVRPMTW) is studied by considering both economic cost and customer satisfaction. A calculation method for road travel time across time periods was designed. A satisfaction measure function based on a time window and a measure function of the economic cost was employed by considering time‐varying vehicle speeds, fuel consumption, carbon emissions and customers’ time windows. The object of the TDSDGVRPMTW model is to minimize the sum of the economic cost and maximize average customer satisfaction. According to the characteristics of the model, a variable neighborhood search combined with a non‐dominated sorting genetic algorithm II (VNS‐ NSGA‐II) was designed. Finally, the experimental data show that the proposed approaches effectively reduce total distribution costs and promote energy conservation and customer satisfaction.