Vehicle routing in an urban area: Environmental and technological determinants

Abstract

This paper discusses selected environmental and technological issues of routing freight vehicles in urban areas. The conditions of organizing distribution minimizing not only realization time but also the emission of harmful components of exhaust gases are described. Time-dependant traffic conditions characteristic for densely populated urban areas are defined and discussed according to ecological aspects. Theoretical information about CO2 emission in urban conditions are gathered and used to formulate the base of mathematical model of a Time-Dependant Vehicle Routing Problem with emission criteria function, as a version of Capacitated Vehicle Routing Problem. The model comprises selected characteristics of urban transport infrastructure such as distances, speed limits, zones, or the effect of rush hours. It allows considering different types of vehicles according to the task requirements and emission characteristics, and changing traffic conditions. The model is implemented onto a representation of a real transport network and solved for given data with two step-heuristics basing on a modified A-star algorithm and genetic programming. Appropriate results, future research directions and other potential uses are presented and discussed. © 2013 WIT Press.