Emission Vehicle Routing Problem with Split Delivery and a Heterogeneous Vehicle Fleet

In order to reduce the greenhouse effect caused by road haulage, new methods for transportation planning need to be developed. The amount of combusted diesel on a route segment of a tour depends to a large extend on the travel distance, the curb weight and the actual payload of the vehicle traversing that segment. Both, using an adequate mixed fleet and allowing split deliveries, open up options for reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions caused by transportation. A MIP-model for a GHG based vehicle routing problem with a mixed fleet and split deliveries is presented. To demonstrate the achieved potential for emission reduction, we analyze results of applying our model to instances generated for homogeneous and mixed fleets.