An adaptive large neighborhood search heuristic for the vehicle routing problem with time windows and delivery robots

Considering autonomous delivery robots in urban logistics has attracted a great deal of attention in recent years. In the meantime, new technology has led to new operational challenges, such as the routing and scheduling of vehicles and delivery robots together that are currently outside the logistics service providers' capability. In this paper, a vehicle routing problem with time windows and delivery robots (VRPTWDR) as a variant of the classical VRP is studied. The investigated problem is concerned with the routing of a set of delivery vans equipped with a number of self-driving parcel delivery robots. To tackle the VRPTWDR, an Adaptive Large Neighborhood Search heuristic algorithm is developed. Experiments show the performance and effectiveness of the algorithm for solving the VRPTWDR, and provide insights on the use of self-driving parcel delivery robots as an alternative last mile service. (c) 2021 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

This paper investigates the routing and scheduling of autonomous delivery robots in urban logistics, proposing an algorithm to solve the VRPTWDR and demonstrating its performance and effectiveness. The research shows that self-driving parcel delivery robots can be a new alternative for last mile service.