Two-Echelon Vehicle Routing Problem with Recharge Stations

Abstract

The efficient operation of logistic processes requires a wide range of design tasks to ensure efficient, flexible and reliable operation of connected production and service processes. Autonomous electric vehicles support the flexible in-plant supply of cyber-physical manufacturing systems. Within the frame of this article, the extension of the Two-Echelon Vehicle Routing Problem with recharge stations is analyzed. The objective function of the optimization problem is the minimization of operation costs. The extension of 2E-VRP means that the second level vehicles (electric vehicles, must be recharged) come from one recharge station, then pick up the products from the satellite, visit the customers and return to the recharge station from where it started. We solved the route planning problem with the application of construction heuristics and improvement heuristics. The test results indicate that the combination of this approach provides a superior efficiency.