Balancing Timeliness and Resource Limitations in Vehicle Routing Problems with Time Windows
摘要
This paper addresses the Vehicle Routing Problem with Time Windows and Limited Resources (VRP-TR), which involves managing routes to connect customers for the delivery and pickup of service teams using different vehicles at the beginning and end of specified time windows. The model assumes that service teams operate in a multimodal mode, allowing them to be delivered by one mode of transport and picked up by another. The problem is constrained by the size of the vehicle fleet and the number of available service teams, which together limit the ability to process orders within the required time frames. Acknowledging scenarios where not all customers can be served on time, the study seeks to develop service plans that balance the timely provision of services to clients with the costs incurred by the service provider. The implementation of this problem within a declarative modeling framework enabled computational experiments, the results of which demonstrate its applicability to practical scenarios such as planning home healthcare visits or home appliance service appointments.