Vehicle routing optimization for surplus food in nonprofit organizations

Abstract

Non-profit organizations mitigate the problem of food insecurity by collecting surplus food from donors and delivering it to underprivileged people. In this paper, we focus on a single non-profit organization located in Makkah city (Saudi Arabia), referred to as Ekram. The current surplus food pickup/delivery and operational routing model of Ekram organization have several apparent deficiencies. First, we model the surplus pickup/delivery and operational routing model as a vehicle routing problem (VRP). Then, we optimize the pickup/delivery of different types of food groups through the different available routes. Finally, we utilize the formulated VRP problem by minimizing the total route distances. Our proposed model ensures reduction of the total time and effort necessary to send the collecting vehicles to the donors of surplus food.